


Separated Souls

by Lacertae



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M, Near Death Experiences, Omnic Racism, Soulmates, except with daemons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:34:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22794079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lacertae/pseuds/Lacertae
Summary: *Genji/Zenyatta* Soulmate AU - soulmates have each other's Daemons.For Genji and Zenyatta, the road to finding one another is a slow, uneven path. But at least, they are not alone as they go.
Relationships: Genji Shimada/Tekhartha Zenyatta
Comments: 80
Kudos: 210





	1. 01

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfic was inspired by [THIS](https://craftgamerzz.tumblr.com/post/190822600376/ya-alls-its-geraskierweek-day-1-soulmates) comic i was linked to by my boo @gnomeicecream. i'm not in this particular fandom, but im hella into HDM xovers.
> 
> You don't really need to know anything about His Dark Materials in order to enjoy this fic, but for the uninitiated (please read the trilogy please watch the tv-show IGNORE THE MOVIE please just. become part of this fandom i beg you i am so in love with HDM and it needs so many more fans PLEASE ive been waiting for 2 decades for it to be famous enough to have ppl to talk with about it) AHEM. ANYWAY.
> 
> for the uninitiated, a daemon is half of your soul that exists outside of your body and takes the form of an animal that is a representation of who you are as a person, but when you’re a child, daemons can change shape at will, they only stabilize later in life (in canon that happens around puberty. allowing for a little tweak, in this AU it usually happens during mid-teen years). normally, daemons cannot go too far from the person they belong with, stretching that bond is painful. in canon, witches' daemons can travel far from them. in this particular AU, exceptions are made for soulmate daemons. daemons die if their person dies, and the person dies if their daemon dies (there are some exceptions but they aren't needed in this particular case). you do not touch someone else's daemon because it is a rather intimate gesture (it has been done between lovers but it's not a thing that's talked about).
> 
> This fic has two parts. part one is 3 chapters long, part two should be around the same size. :3

**Chapter 01**

Genji is seven when he first sees someone with a daemon who isn’t the other half of their person’s soul.

He knows it happens in the same way he knows bedtime is at 8pm sharp, or that his daemon prefers to sleep by his feet instead of on the pillow, because Genji will sneeze or end up with a mouthful of fur in his sleep, but he never met one in his short life before.

There are stories about them, he knows –that soulmate daemons are precious and rare, and they have special powers that normal daemons like his Yuuna don’t have.

Genji is a bit envious, but most of all, he finds it cool. He and Yuuna play with other kids, and sometimes they play pretend. He doesn’t really like the thing about love, and kisses, and hugging that soulmates should do, like in all the romcoms his mom loves, but he likes the adventure, the drama, and of course the magical powers.

The whispers reach him quickly, a grapevine between kids travelling very far, and Genji resolves –he needs to meet with her.

He’s young, and loud, and bossy, and curious –even his mom, kind as she is, has a hard time getting him to stay still. Usually, it’s her daemon –a beautiful white crane– that has to grab Yuuna in her beak to get Genji to calm down… but there is no one with him now, and so he rushes forwards to the young, lithe girl with a snake wrapped around her shoulders.

Word is that the snake does not speak to her, leaving kids wonder about why, avoiding the girl like she’s infected by something. Grapevine, again, says that he hates her, or maybe that her soulmate doesn't speak Japanese, though that sounds weird since by what Genji knows, she's had the daemon since the start. He also hears she has bad luck, so bad even her soulmate daemon doesn't want to speak with her. The mystery only makes it more interesting.

That is enough to make Genji feel emboldened, and his own daemon, flying as fast as she can around his head in the form of a tiny hummingbird, pushes him forwards until he flops down in front of her, startling her enough the snake dislodges from her shoulder to stare at him, his form big and daunting.

Genji feels no fear, though.

“Oi,” he says, and the girl squints at him. He grins and puffs his chest out. “I’m Genji.”

Her lips curl into a small pout. “Yes,” she answers. “I know. Everybody knows you.”

Her words make Genji feel good –like he’s famous, and isn’t that funny? He’s sure no one tells this to Hanzo. Hah.

“Before you ask,” she says right afterwards, glaring at him some more, “yes. Mamoru is my soulmate’s daemon.” She says his name deliberately slow, like Genji will forget it if she says it too quickly.

“And–”

“–no, he does not know who my soulmate is. He’s with me since I was born, how could he?” once again, the girl precedes his question, and Genji leans back, pouting.

“What? Really? That’s boring! How can you two meet if you don’t have that to help?”

“What’s it to you anyway? Your daemon is your own, isn’t it?” the girl seems just as upset as he is, and Genji draws back, annoyed.

“I just thought it’d be cool, y’know? To ask stuff about it.” He knows he should not sound so informal, but his mom is not around, and neither is father, nor Hanzo, so he doesn’t care as much. It makes him feel better, like he’s older and can do whatever he wants. “Everybody says soulmate daemons are cool and can do amazing stuff. So… what does your daemon do?”

“… nothing. He just likes to sleep a lot and hog all my food.” The girl shrugs. “He doesn’t change much either.”

Genji’s eyes widen. “He’s settled already? But you’re what, eight? Is your soulmate a stinky old man?”

“I’m _ten_!” somehow, Genji getting her age wrong seems more offensive than Genji’s rudeness. “And no! He just likes being a snake. I don’t have an old soulmate!”

“Liar!” Genji surges forwards, as close as he dares, and his daemon, Yuuna, changes mid-flight into a ladybug, fluttering until she settles over Mamoru, walking over his pretty green and brown scales. “Prove it, then. Is it why you’re always alone? Because your soulmate’s an adult already?”

“I don’t need to prove it to you! You’re just mean!”

The girl scrambles to stand up, jostling Mamoru a little and making Yuuna fly away, reverting back into a bird –this time a small sparrow.

“Oh, c’mon, then you can make him change, even a little bit! I want to see!”

“No!” she cradles her hands around the head of the snake daemon, as if to shield him from Genji’s eyes and the fluttering of Yuuna’s wings, and steps away from them. “There’s nothing special about him!”

“I can see that,” Genji says, rude and disappointed, and his words make the girl gasp, enraged at his agreement.

“You’re really mean. I can’t believe the other kids like you.”

Genji feels a jolt of anger, offended at her words.

“And I can’t believe I thought your daemon was cool. I bet it doesn’t do anything because it doesn’t like you and would want to go back to his own other half instead of being stuck with your ugly face!”

The girl’s face twists into a grimace, angry tears swelling in her eyes, and Genji feels the smallest guilt at how hurt she looks, but then he brushes it off. He just wanted an adventure, and she’s being mean and rude to him so it’s ok for him to be rude back, he tells himself.

“You know what?” the girl shows him her tongue. “Even if Mamoru had special powers, I would never show them to _you_. You’re the villain, and heroes never let the villain win.”

The girl leaves in a huff, without looking back, and Genji watches her go and makes a rude gesture that has even Yuuna gasp at him.

“Doesn’t matter. Stupid snake. Isn’t even _that_ cool.”

He thought soulmate daemons were meant to have incredible powers, but the snake never moved, not even once, and that’s boring.

What’s the point in having someone else’s daemon instead of your own anyway, if you don’t get something cool in exchange?

He thought soulmate daemons could, like, breathe fire, or have shapes that other daemons couldn’t take, or at least do neat stuff like in his fantasy comics and in his books, but that old snake didn’t even want to chase Yuuna…

“What a bummer,” Yuuna says, sounding more amused than anything. “I thought he would try to eat me, but he didn’t even move! Lazy butt! Jane is more fun to bother.”

Jane is Hanzo’s daemon, and Genji giggles.

He loves to scare her the most, because she’s very loud, even when Hanzo is quiet and calm, and when Yuuna makes her jump, Hanzo gets all huffy, and chases Genji around the garden until they’re both exhausted.

“Then why don’t we go annoy her?”

Thoughts of soulmate daemons are all but gone from his mind, replaced by the thrill of a fun prank to his brother.

It will be years before Hanzo tells him that Jane is not his daemon –it’s not a secret, per se, but Hanzo is a private kid, closed on himself and despondent, and Genji’s fascination with superpowers is part of why Hanzo tries his best to make their father proud.

The daemon trailing behind him, loud as she is, has no special powers, and a part of him, squashed down as it is, is afraid that their father will be disappointed, if he doesn’t at least become good as his heir.

Unaware as he is, Genji decides, out of spite and boredom, that after all soulmate daemons might not be really all that special.

Maybe it’s better, really, that he has Yuuna and she’s his.

He can’t think how weird it would be to have someone’s half soul in place of his own.

***

Genji is fifteen when he wakes up, startled, after a weird dream.

It’s not quite a _nightmare_ , but he dreams of a long, winding corridor with no light, the walls cold and made of stone, and in the dream he is alone, lost in the dark.

Genji doesn’t fear the dark –but tight places make him feel too small, like he can’t breathe, and if it’s black he can’t even see the walls, and he hates it.

Where is Yuuna? He doesn’t feel different, but that scares him –he always thought he would feel something if she was gone, but he can’t find her now, and doesn’t know where she is, and he hates it.

He needs to find her, and in the dream he thinks if he finds her, he will not be scared of the dark anymore.

Then, a candle burns into the distance, too far to use it to see, and Genji feels a sudden, unexplainable tug at his chest, as painful as when he and Yuuna try to test the bond and walk far from one another, only it continues, like a dull stretch.

Is Yuuna going towards that tiny light? She can’t! if she goes, Genji–

In the dream, Genji’s eyes fill with tears. He knows the reason why she can’t go, but it slips away, replaced by urgency.

“Yuuna!” he calls out, but his voice doesn’t come out, and he feels sad, so sad he wants to run, but can’t. His feet are glued to the ground, so heavy they can’t move, he can’t move, and the light falters and fades, and the ache in his chest grows, and–

“Yuuna!”

And then he wakes up, heart thundering in his chest.

His room is dark, and in a flash, he scrambles with his covers, tugging them off his body so he can breathe and gasp, shivering like he’s cold as he remembers the dream, the shadows dark and constricting around him, and how he felt like he would die if he couldn’t find…

“Yuuna?” he calls out, mouth parched. “I had such a weird dream…”

Yuuna doesn’t answer him.

Genji feels a sudden chill, and he rushes to flick the bedside table lamp open, hand bumping into a bottle of water and sending it flying to the floor.

Light washes over him, making him wince and squint as the dark blob that was his room grows familiar again around him, and the shadows that had looked so scary turn into his chair, clothes tossed on it in a pile, and into the ninja cardboard near the wall that his friends nicked from the local theatre.

He breathes, and calms down, just a little.

It was just a nightmare.

“Yuuna? You still asle–”

The spot where Yuuna usually sleeps, curled in a ball in the form of a cat, is empty.

He looks around, panic worming its way up his chest, even if he can still feel her presence in his heart, and then he sees it.

It’s a butterfly, delicate blue shimmering in the glow of the lamp at his side. It’s not flying, it’s just… sitting on the pillow, where Genji’s head had been, like it’s confused. Like it doesn’t know what to do.

Genji feels – _wrong_.

This is not Yuuna, but… but this is a daemon.

It’s not the right time for butterflies, he knows, and they never come near the estate anyway, since there aren’t many flowers here. Not since mom…

Yuuna is gone, and another daemon is in her place.

This is all wrong, and scary, and Genji feels helpless, and _he hates it_.

“Who are you?!” he stumbles away from the bed, heckles raising, but the little daemon doesn’t answer. “Who are you?!” he yells, louder now, and the daemon _still_ doesn’t answer.

In the silence, Genji’s heart racing, aching – _where is Yuuna? Who is this?_ – he wants to cry. He’s a teenager, he shouldn’t feel like crying, he’s a grown up already, and his father would be disappointed in him if he cried, but–

He feels like a little kid again, like that time when he had been stuck in an elevator, panicking because Yuuna had been left outside of it, the doors closing between them because a bigger daemon had bumped into her. Genji had felt like the world was ending, a moment too late when someone pressed the button for the elevator to go up, the pain in his chest sudden and so painful he'd felt like he was dying–

Only this time, there is no pain… and that’s worse.

Because even as shocked and scared as he is, he knows what that means.

The silent daemon’s wings shake, tremble as it extends them, slowly, yet fails to fly, stumbles on the pillow, and Genji feels a pang of pain and helplessness.

New, Genji thinks, distantly, as panic slowly builds in his chest. This daemon moves like a newborn, and he thinks… he _knows_ … that he won’t see Yuuna again.

All he has left is a nameless, newborn daemon on his pillow, and tears down his cheeks that he can’t stop, and he hates it.

He hates it, and hates this little daemon, and hates the idea of soulmates, because it ripped his Yuuna away from him just like that, and maybe they’ll never find each other again, and now he’s _alone_ –

Suddenly, he feels breathless, and gasps, Yuuna’s name on his lips like a prayer.

He _is_ alone. For the first time since he can remember, Yuuna is not with him, and he wants her back.

In the elevator, the pain had ended quickly –with him screaming loudly, hands had stopped the elevator before it could go too far, Genji’s mother wrapping her arms around him to soothe him, and then Yuuna had returned, in just as much pain as he was, turned into a ferret to wrap around his neck, and he’d buried his face in her fur, sobbing, scared and inconsolable. Later, he turned it around into a hero's tale for all of his friends to hide how scared he had been.

Now, there is no pain except for the one he feels inside him, and that… can’t be cured, because Yuuna can’t come back.

The sound of his screams make his father rush into his room, Hanzo in tow.

The nameless daemon barely flinches, and Yuuna is gone, gone, gone, gone.

***

Z3N-T4 is on the ground.

He does not remember how he got there, not at first, and his processes are sluggish, like they are compressing and working around something big, bigger than he’s ever had to process before.

For a few seconds, time almost stands still as he probes around the synapses in his brain, circuits connecting, shaping themselves anew.

There is a distinction in his mind –like a drawn line. His processes tick slowly, recalibrate, analyse, run diagnostics.

It feels like he’s doing it for the first time ever.

He’s overheating, his system alerts warn him. He’s overheating and shaking, sensors registering the air, the pressure, the temperature differently from before. There is a sense of unpleasantness in the gravel underneath his knees and hands, but the air on his chassis feels… his processes categorize it as ‘pleasant’, using words he’s learned that he never had to apply to himself.

Himself.

That is what differs from before –the line splitting from the omnic he had been, nameless, mindless, a machine like another… and now.

Now, Z3N-T4 thinks. He is something. Someone. There is an ‘I’ in his thoughts that was not there before. He thinks ‘I’ and that ‘I’ becomes himself, separate from others.

His processes tick, try to travel back, but a sensation he records as ‘nausea’ hit him when he thinks too much about the before, when he was not an ‘I’. Instead, he focuses on the gravel under his fingers, digging into it tightly enough he feels some tiny pebbles lodge themselves into the crook of his knuckles, and thinks about that fine ‘line’.

A flash of what appears to be a long, endless and unlit corridor appears in his memory logs, so real yet so faint it is gone before he can analyse it, and his memory logs come empty of it.

Z3N-T4 shakes for what feels like forever, and when he glances up, trying to understand where he is, his optical receptors fall upon a small, huddled figure on the floor by him.

The figure is shivering, emitting soft, displeased sounds, and his processes give it the name ‘sparrow’.

He’d been staring… staring. At a bird in flight, ‘before’. That had been… that was how he’d awakened. Gained a self. He had looked at a bird, outside of the gated, guarded area, and he had thought ‘free, like that’ and somehow had felt longing, and desire… only not in words, or in images, but in feelings, ideas, concepts, comparing freedom with an image of himself, not a multitude but a single, and… and…

And suddenly, where before had been a shell, now there was him.

There _is_ him.

This bird in front of him is not the same, and Z3N-T4 knows, without knowing how, or why, but believes it in the same way he believes he can think now simply because he is doing so.

Slowly, he extends a hand towards the tiny bird, but it must catch a glimpse of him approaching, perhaps, because it flinches and his wings spread out defensively, ready to fly away–

“Oi! Stay away from that daemon, you filthy can!”

Footsteps stomp towards him, and Z3N-T4 has only a fraction of a second to understand what is happening before a foot connects with his side and sends him sprawled on the ground, pain flaring from his circuits.

His optical receptors catch a flash of red –a fox daemon– standing between him and the bird, fur raised and teeth bared.

Protecting it from him.

Not a bird. A daemon.

A stray thought connects the dots in Z3N-T4’s mind –that daemons are people’s souls, that this means there is someone around who is half of this bird’s soul, and that he almost reached out to touch it, and that’s…

You do not touch someone else’s daemon.

Even someone like him, barely aware, knows of this.

“I wasn’t–” he tries to say, stilted and scared, but another foot comes down on him, stronger this time, pinning him in place.

“Filthy shit, were you _stealing_ daemons?” the voice is thick with disgust, rage and fear. “Where is its other half? What did you do to them?!”

“Nothing–”

A hand wraps itself around his arm, and tugs him. Z3N-T4 slips and stumbles as the man drags him forcefully away from his own daemon still standing as protector, putting enough space between them that the man himself strains and grits his teeth–

Z3N-T4 feels an ache he cannot explain in his core, like a burning, growing every inch the man pushes him to the side, and gasps.

It’s too confusing –his processes continue to overheat, his sensors spike, the pain resonating within his entire chassis like a longing, like he’s being stabbed through, and–

“Stop!”

The voice is unfamiliar, and Z3N-T4’s sensors barely register it, but the man stiffens.

“What is it, Vannya?”

When the fox daemon speaks next, it is in such a hushed whisper Z3N-T4 barely hears her. “You’re hurting her.”

“Hurting…?”

Z3N-T4 gasps, forehead pressed desperately into the gravel underneath him, uncaring if it scrapes and scratches his faceplate, his fans spinning so loudly it’s overwhelming, but the man drops his arm and he folds on himself.

It’s too much, it’s too much–

The pain in his chest lessens, slowly, leaving him sore.

Then, he feels a presence –at the edge of his conscious, in the back of his mind, something clicks, and the small sparrow jumps in front of him and says something in a language Z3N-T4 does not recognise.

“I can’t–” he fumbles, his synth glitching.

He cannot recognise the language, mental processes running wild, white noise building within his auricular nodes like a storm.

The little daemon doesn’t touch him, but opens her wings wide and makes a chirping sound towards Vannya.

“She said–” the fox daemon growls, like she’s reluctant to speak, fur puffed out, “she said the omnic is hers.”

The man backs away so quickly it feels like a whiplash, but Z3N-T4 barely notices.

There is a faint wonder building within his core that he doesn’t understand, but he can feel the growing disgust of the man standing above him like a physical blow, he can hear it through his harsh breathing and the fox daemon’s hisses.

Z3N-T4 is an omnic, newly born, but he still knows what humans think of omnics and daemons.

Omnics don’t have souls –and if they have no souls, then they have no daemons. If Omnics don’t have daemons –they steal them from humans, reprogram them and control them in their jealousy, wanting to copy, wanting to imitate, wanting to pass and pretend and fool humans.

Z3N-T4 has never wanted –not a soul, not a daemon, nothing. Until he wanted to be free. Until he became an ‘I’. because of this, he knows humans lie.

“ _Monstruous_.” The man hisses, makes a rude gesture, and steps back further. “Vannya, let’s… let’s go. I don’t want to be near it.”

“But the daemon–”

“It can claim this can. I don’t care. If he steals you too–” a loud yip of agreement has the fox daemon jump on her man’s shoulder, digging her claws into the fabric of his clothes. “Let them go away from here. Let someone else deal with this abomination.”

They both _run_ away –so quickly Z3N-T4 would be impressed, if he wasn’t busy recovering.

It takes him a long while to recalibrate enough to finally lift his head, longer than that to look down at the small bird, who decidedly is not looking at him, feathers puffed up in an attempt to look bigger than it is.

She.

The daemon is a she.

It takes him even longer to recall from his memory logs the words the daemon spoke to him, clumsily connecting to the net to download a language patch.

Even this feels different –something he’s doing for his own benefit, in a way, and not for his job.

It should feel better, perhaps, as first times go, but all it feels is dull. Z3N-T4 is… tired. Existing is _exhausting_ , and he has yet to calibrate his battery drain to include a greater brain capability.

“H… hi?” he tries, clumsy with his first words of Japanese.

The bird daemon stiffens.

“… you stole me,” she whispers, in a language he now can comprehend.

She sounds broken. In pain.

Z3N-T4 doesn’t understand.

“I… I didn’t,” he says, barely a murmur. “I did not exist until…” a shivers runs down his back, and watches as the tiny daemon shivers as well. “Did I steal you…?”

The daemon is without her other half, he thinks, slowly.

There’s no one else around.

Something akin to fear makes its way through his circuits, slowly but surely, as he thinks –do omnics really steal daemons from humans? Is it the price to pay for existing?

If so, on top of everything else, Z3N-T4 doesn’t–

“You stole me from my Genji,” she clarifies, and the name sticks in the empty air between them like a sudden weight. Her other half’s name. Genji. “He’s alone now, because I _have_ to be here.” A beat, then the daemon looks up at him. Birds don’t have expressions, but Z3N-T4 is shocked, circuits whirring with static, when he realises the daemon is furious, and hurt, and– “I _hate you_.”

Z3N-T4 wavers, and something within him feels too heavy, like it’s about to break, like all of this is too much, like it happened too quickly, and his optics blur and his chest _hurts_.

A daemon that doesn’t belong to him is tied to him.

He stole her.

He’s existed for less than 30 minutes and he has brought harm to this creature, and somehow, though in the past so many have uttered the same words at him, over and over, they’d never touched him, never make him feel so horrid, so guilty, feelings he has words for that are novel and dirty inside his chest, making him reel and feel dirty, like he’s covered in slime, and a part of him wonders, distantly, if it’s truly worth it.

His thoughts slow down, sluggish, vexed, tired, and rather than words, he feels, words receding from him. It’s not truly worth it, if his existence has only caused others pain, and anger, and disgust, and perhaps it would be better if–

Wings flutter so quickly against his faceplate he reels back, and the intense weight in his core lessens by a fraction.

The daemon is touching him –flapping her wings fast into him, little talons scratching at the metal of his faceplate– and every touch makes his core jump, like there is something burning within him yet cold at the same time, a sweet sense of belonging that his sensors register and log as he crumbles around the feeling, and all of him _aches_.

“No, no, no, no, no!” the daemon is screeching at him, loud and erratic, but there’s no hatred in her tone anymore –just a fear so enormous Z3N-T4 hesitates, thoughts stopping, mind processes blank.

She’s scared. She’s away from her other half, and it’s his fault, and he hurts but– she hurts more. Because of him, and he doesn’t know why. Or how.

The tiny daemon gasps and heaves and falls against him and _changes_ , grows into another animal, a cat with long, luscious fur, headbutts his chest and buries her face in the crook of Z3N-T4’s neck, and purrs loudly, and Z3N-T4 clumsily holds her there, ignoring the way his core tightens at the contact.

The purring soothes a part of him he didn’t even know was hurting, but the thought is confusing and only serves to make him feel worse.

“Shit, shit, I’m sorry –I don’t… I _don’t_ hate you. I could feel it. I _don’t_ hate you, I didn’t mean to make you want to–” she mutters into his neck, but he doesn’t understand what she means. It’s just… “You’re not mine, and I’m not yours, and I’m scared, and angry, and I miss Genji, but you’re all I have now, and I’m all you have. And I won’t let people hurt you like that guy did. Like… like I did. I’m sorry.”

She’s saying sorry. She says it like she was hurting him –but it was him who hurt _her_.

“Who… who are you?”

The daemon freezes, her purring stopping. “Yuuna,” she says. “I’m Yuuna.” She looks up into his optics, like she’s seeing him for the first time. “And you are here, now, and I won’t let you go anymore, okay? I will protect you until we find Genji together. Even if he’s alone now, I’ll make sure you are not. I will be good. I will be like the daemons in Genji’s stories, that have special powers. My special power is that I will keep you _here_.”

She’s rambling, he knows, but a part of him feels fond of her for trying. He never had anyone there for him, and now he has her –even if he stole her. Even if she should hate him, she’s kind enough not to.

Z3N-T4 doesn’t understand, but her weight against his chest is comforting, and she’s warm, and when she starts purring again, soothing his processes enough they finally slow down, he doesn’t complain, and simply holds her closer.

He doesn’t understand.

But he will.


	2. 02

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what do you mean i used this fic to imply that the iris is made of Dust
> 
> but yes, yes i did.

**Chapter 02**

Genji does not touch the newborn daemon for weeks.

The idea makes him feel like vomiting, and for the first time he wonders how soulmates can do it –touch each other’s daemons like this, like they’re not touching someone else’s soul, like it’s not something that is too much.

He watches his aunt’s daemon, Sora, gently nudge the tiny butterfly daemon around, making sure they keep following Genji, even when he wants to run far away –because, and that is what’s worse, Genji feels the ache when the daemon is too far.

He tests it, so often he thinks the daemon learns to fly faster to keep close to him simply to stop hurting, and every single time he wants to sob and deny the truth.

Yuuna is gone, and this is all he’s got left.

A nameless, mute daemon.

The first time he thinks too hard about it, he vomits into the toilet, the taste it leaves in his mouth less disgusting than the thought itself.

Genji watches his father’s disappointed, displeased gaze as he looks at the two of them, at how Genji barely looks at his… at the new daemon, at how he continues to reject him, day after day, like he hopes if he rejects it enough he’ll get Yuuna back.

Is he disappointed in Genji, or in Genji having a soulmate?

“You cannot continue to run,” his father tells him one day, stern and focused, and his daemon bares her teeth at him. “A Shimada does not run. A Shimada faces everything head on.”

Had Yuuna been with him, she would have been forced to bow to his father’s daemon, like always –but the butterfly barely reacts, almost uncaring, and Genji sees his father’s dismissal of them, and seethes.

“I never wanted this!” he lashes out, uncaring if his attitude brings shame on himself in front of his father.

“Destiny does not care what you wish,” his father replies, coldly. “Either you accept this is the hand you’re dealt with, or you kill your soulmate daemon by your hand, dooming your own daemon to a life that is not a life, and your soulmate to oblivion.”

His father’s words chill Genji to the bone.

Delivered like a statement, with little care, no warmth, and Genji doesn’t think his father is lying –for him, these are the only two options. Avoidance shows weakness, and a Shimada cannot be weak.

He also knows his father is right –at least in the fact that he cannot avoid the daemon forever. He’s not stupid, he’s just… mourning, and angry, and he thinks he has the right of it, even if his father’s disappointed.

Genji also cannot say he hasn’t thought about harming the daemon –at least at first, while he was still lashing out at the idea… but he would never really do it, and the thought that his father expects that to be an option is… scary, but at the same time Genji knows his father. It’s not surprising, coming from him.

Besides, there have been whispers, passed from person to person, from daemon to daemon, to what happens if a soulmate daemon dies.

A normal daemon dies and their person dies with them. It is how it is. If you lose half your soul, you lose the whole of it –you lose your life.

Soulmate daemons are different, because they are tied to another person, not you.

If the soulmate daemon dies… the original other half becomes lost, trapped within their own mind, breathing and standing if assisted, able to eat if made to, but without a thought, without a mind behind glassy eyes… and the daemon of their soulmate is tied to them, forever, unable to leave.

For his father to propose that so easily, like it’s the best outcome… it makes something inside Genji rebel.

He could never force Yuuna to live like that, even if he were to feel nothing for the daemon and the person whose half soul he’s now tied to, but he doesn’t… he does not really wish to harm this daemon, and the thought sickens him.

Genji is not a killer, and the thought that his father expects him to take that road for the sake of not having a disappointment as a son…

He runs, of course, and the tiny butterfly daemon follows him tentatively, barely keeping up, their bond stretching like a taut string that reminds him, every moment it tugs and stings, that this is Genji’s life now.

“Look, it’s Genji!”

He stiffens. Word of his new predicament has spread quickly, and now kids stay away from him, because change is scary, and his dull, wordless daemon is scarier still.

Adults look at him in pity, and kids whisper –though not too loudly. After all, Genji is still a Shimada, and while he’s not clear on what his father does, he knows people are scared more of him than of Genji’s dumb daemon.

“There it is! The daemon! It’s really like a–” and there, they say a word.

Even in Genji’s mind, he can’t repeat it, vulgar and painful as it is, and he falters mid-step as he hears it, but the other kids all laugh, and repeat the word over and over in a joyous, mocking circle.

He’s a teenager, he understands. He mocks others all the time, because he has to establish himself as the leader. Because that’s how he is, how it is.

Before, maybe, he would have joined in. He’s no saint, he’s said so many things he cringes at, now –but if it had been anyone else, he would have joined in, mocked the person, secretly relieved it wasn’t him.

But he’s the one they mock, now, and Genji… Genji knows he’s a hypocrite, but he thinks he understands, now, why it’s so bad. Maybe he always knew, and simply needed a wake-up call.

He hates the daemon following him. Hates to see the unchanging form of a butterfly, hates that it looks so pretty when the sunlight makes its wings shimmer. Hates that he still wakes hoping to see Yuuna in its place…

Hates that he’s not being fair. The daemon is a new-born. Had the swap happened with Genji younger, maybe he wouldn’t have cared –they would have grown and learned together, as one.

It is just fucked up that Genji is a teen, and his soulmate a baby, and he is stuck without his Yuuna, the only one who ever understood him.

“Shut up!” he hisses.

He wants to be threatening, but he knows it comes out differently. Like he’s whining.

He feels lonely, and alone, and mocked, and he hates it.

It’s not the daemon’s fault. It’s not his soulmate’s fault for being a baby. He _knows_ it. He just hates it.

“You have no right to mock me!”

Haji, one of the teens, sneers at him. He’s never liked Genji because he was cool and people flocked to him, and his family was richer than his own, and they butted heads a lot, in the past –so this, watching Genji’s fall from grace, is a treat. He does not like being challenged now that he’s winning. “Yeah, sure. And you have no right to talk back when you have that daemon, what a–” the word explodes again in Genji’s face, and he flinches back. “I bet I could get Ao to bite off its wing and it wouldn’t even react!” Haji’s expression morphs into something different, full of malice. “Would it hurt _you_?”

It is a direct challenge. In the past, they’ve fought, but Yuuna was always stronger than his daemon, Ao.

Now, though…

Ao jumps in mid-air, shifting quickly from a dog to a bat, flapping her wings wildly and rushing towards Genji’s soulmate daemon.

“No!”

Genji reacts instinctively, putting himself between the charging bat and the tiny butterfly, even if he knows it’s all useless. He can’t touch another person’s daemon, but he still acts without thinking, putting himself between Ao and the butterfly daemon like it matters.

The bat charges and veers in mid-air, avoiding him by an inch, mouth open wide, fangs sharp, reaching for the butterfly daemon who doesn’t move–

“No!” Genji turns around, his heart clenching in his chest, panic rising, bile in his throat.

For a moment, he thinks –he can do it. He can reach out and slap the daemon away, he can take the taboo and a lashing out from his father and become the pariah of the group. He can’t let this daemon get hurt –he just _can’t_ …

Something slams into Ao as she reaches for the butterfly daemon. Both Haji and Ao cry at the sharp pain as Ao is slammed into the ground, talons cradling its tiny form with its face pressed down into the soil, unable to move.

She can’t even change shapes, too shocked by the sudden assault, and then she’s trapped.

Haji crumbles, shocked and in pain, and Genji’s head snaps to the side, only to see–

“You,” he whispers, shocked.

Himawari. After so many years, Genji knows her name now.

Mamoru is not a snake anymore, now. He’s a giant hawk, feathers puffed out to appear bigger than he is, towering on top of Ao with his beak parted threateningly, and she stands a little away from them, hands clenched into fists at her side, long hair swaying behind her like waves.

Genji remembers what everybody tells about her –that she is unlucky, that she brings misfortune, that she is mean, and too quiet, and fakes to be happy. He also remembers he was one of the kids who mocked her, and feels guilt and bile pool in his throat, bitter and sharp.

“You’d better run,” Himawari says, quietly. “Mamoru likes a good chase, and you wouldn’t want me to bring _you_ back luck.”

It’s not a threat. It’s a statement, and there is no anger in her eyes, no disgust. Just sadness, and pity. Genji, who isn’t the focus of her words, shudders.

They’re outnumbered –seven on two, and Genji’s daemon doesn’t fight, it can barely move, so really, seven on one– but the other teens are cowards, and Genji’s name still has enough weight to make them know when it’s time to drop it, and Himawari’s bad luck is scary for them, too… so they run.

Mamoru lets go of Ao, and she changes shape into a field mice while she runs, chasing Haji until Genji, Himawari and their daemons are left alone.

Genji is bitter, and angry, and grumpy, sickened at what almost happened, and at his own inaction and fear, _disgusted_ by it.

He also knows when he’s defeated. “Thank you,” he mutters.

Himawari doesn’t even look at him. “Never mind you. Mamoru, is he okay?”

Mamoru blinks, slowly, then changes shape again, this time into a butterfly just like Genji’s soulmate daemon, only with red and brown wings instead of blue. He’s moved so quickly to protect the other daemon, so purposefully, but now he’s back to a slouch, lazy and quiet, and Genji’s heart is still racing at the display of power to say anything about it now.

The two butterflies flutter around each other, and it is the most he’s seen his own little daemon move on its own, and Genji realises, with a startle, that he’s never thought about asking other daemons to help out. He never cared to.

Most adults leave him be, and his own father is too busy to care much, and Hanzo…

Hanzo stares at him, quietly, with disapproval and a touch of hurt, and avoids him. Since the moment Genji has rejected his soulmate daemon, Hanzo has kept his distance, like he wanted to say something but Genji’s actions hurt him, and now he’s angry and Genji doesn’t know what he did.

He also realises, startled even worse, that Himawari has called his soulmate daemon a ‘he’.

Mamoru shifts again, back to a snake, and slowly climbs up her body, draping himself over her shoulders like before. He whispers something, and Himawari’s eyes grow wide, but she does not speak.

Frustrated and jittery, Genji swallows down everything he feels and breathes through his teeth.

He can’t let what happened today happen again.

The idea of a daemon being hurt… even if it’s not Yuuna… the word Haji called out at him, the fact that he tried to harm him… Genji hates all of it.

And it’s his fault.

“What…” he starts. Then stops. “Is…” he stops again, hating himself, hating this, but then he thinks about Yuuna, and how she would be disappointed in him, and that’s enough for him. He can take his father’s disappointment, and Hanzo’s, and everyone else’s, but not Yuuna’s. He wants to make her proud of him, even if she’s far away now. “Is he okay?”

Himawari looks at him, quietly, and tugs at her long hair for a moment. “No,” she finally says. “He’s hurt because you reject him.”

The guilt is like a blade, and all Genji wants to do is lash out at her for daring to say it –but he doesn’t, even if it costs him. Because she’s right.

“I didn’t want this,” he mutters instead, the fight gone from him. “I didn’t want my daemon to disappear. But…” he glances at the daemon, aware that he spoke with someone else, and not with him, and feels even worse. “But I didn’t want him to be hurt either. I’m… I’m sorry.”

He says this to Himawari, then thinks better of it and turns towards the little daemon instead, and repeats the words. They’re bitter, but there is something like relief in the back of his mind.

He’s standing up for something. He’s doing the right thing, finally.

Mamoru hisses something to Himawari, quietly, and she nods. “You have a lot to be sorry for,” she says, with no anger in her tone. “Do you want to make things better?”

“I do.”

Mamoru stares at him then, slowly, without blinking –can snakes even blink? Genji doesn’t know– and curls tighter around Himawari’s shoulders. “He might not want to forgive you right away,” she warns Genji, and he swallows and nods.

“It’s ok. I deserve it,” he says.

Then, in a fresh wave of guilt and shame that leaves him almost breathless, so that his next words come out as a tentative whisper, Genji asks –“do you… do you know his…”

Himawari looks at him, pity and sadness and a bit of disappointment, and Genji makes himself look at her instead of away like he wants.

He deserves that look.

It is not her who speaks, though, but her daemon, and that’s surprising enough to let Genji know just how important it is that he listens.

Mamoru’s head moves to stare at him, slowly, and then he says, quietly but calmly, a single word, an accent unlike anything Genji’s ever heard. “Sapanā.”

Genji’s hand shake all the way home, the little soulmate daemon, Sapanā, following him slowly in mid-air, distant enough not to touch him, but a little closer than before.

It’s a start, at least, and Genji has a lot to make up for.

***

Zenyatta wakes with what he can only think is the taste of strawberries in mind.

He is an omnic, and thus, he has no sense of taste –he can smell the strawberries, but they are rare to come at the monastery… but their taste?

Their taste is foreign to him, and his curiosity is only ever smoothened by a ghost sensation when Yuuna swallows them whole, lazily rolling around on her little bed, and even then it is probably only a trick of his synapses.

Omnics cannot taste, yet he can give voice to how strawberries taste, and perhaps, he thinks this might come from Genji eating them, somewhere in Japan.

Yuuna yawns, baring her teeth, and looks up at him. “I want strawberries,” she says, and Zenyatta’s startled laugh echoes in their room and in the empty corridors of the monastery.

Zenyatta’s day goes on slowly. The monastery is old, and constantly needs fixing, and there’s always some problem coming up. First, the pipes freeze, because their thermal coolant mechanism has been attacked by a colony of wasps and none of the monks noticed. Then, the roof of one of the buildings outside caves in due to the snow. Then, brother Yutta’s leg malfunctions, and Zenyatta has to send someone down the path to the village at the base of the mountain to call back their mechanic, who had originally gone there to fix a villager’s hover tractor.

It’s hard, sometimes, to juggle menial work with the more demanding meditation sessions. He’s used to working, occupying his hands and thoughts with something physical.

It’s still hard, to think, and reflect, and let go of all of it, but the challenge makes it worth it, and Yuuna is always by his side, learning with him.

Zenyatta looks back to his life before the monastery, to how Yuuna was then, unable to stand still, and feels like they both have grown considerably over the years.

It has not been easy, of course –he’s an omnic with a daemon, and not just that… the daemon is a soulmate daemon, and while omnics having daemons isn’t that rare, no matter what humans say… a soulmate is a different thing. Precious, rare. Dangerous. Many do not hesitate to express their displeasure. Yuuna’s the one who doesn’t forgive, who bares her teeth to help Zenyatta even when he hesitates, and thanks to her, Zenyatta grows strong, too. He needs to be, so he can protect her back as she deserves, let him become a safe haven for her to rest when she needs it.

He knows she misses Genji –through her tales, he’s grown to know a little about who his soulmate is– but he’s grateful she never asked him to travel to Japan to find him.

He’s not ready.

He’s been alive for five years, now, and feels like all of his life he’s only learned a fraction of what he’s meant to learn. His master, Mondatta, tells him often that Zenyatta’s life has barely started, and that his purpose is greater than he thinks it is, but it’s hard to justify not rushing to Japan to find Genji.

Selfish.

It stings a bit that he has no problem finding good reasons not to. It is not safe, for him to travel to Japan. There’s bout after bout of hatred against omnics, and humans hate to think they are not the only ones with souls in this world.

Not all omnics have daemons. Many never awaken, with no support or desire to become, and just as many live a life halfway between self-awareness and dusk, and of those who take that last step, who grow into their own, many choose to hide, their daemons small, as invisible as they can be, so not to be noticed.

Zenyatta cannot hide Yuuna, nor he wishes to. He wants every omnic to have a chance to live without having to hide, and the fact that so many kneel and look down to survive makes him feel furious, and helpless.

With the Australian outback exploding, with the Lunar Colony growing restless, the anti-omnic sentiment only grows, and Yuuna… Yuuna never hid how badly Genji’s family treated the few omnics employed for them.

How they use them as scapegoats, as targets for practice, as mere stand-ins for furniture. Yuuna is quick to say Genji isn’t like that, but Genji belongs to his family, still, and will for a long while, and if Zenyatta wants to survive, he needs to wait.

It will not ingratiate him any, to act in a rush.

It’s not even about him being his soulmate –Zenyatta knows more now than he did when he became an ‘I’, and he knows soulmates are precious, and they do not have to grow into something romantic if that’s not how it is meant to be, but the thought of a person in this world that resonates with his soul so much they can switch daemons, that the music their souls make is perfectly in tune with one another, like two parts of a single melody… it scares him.

He’s become his own person only recently, only to learn that for the world, he might as well still miss half of himself –and that for many, many people, he’s not even meant to have any of it.

Zenyatta feel selfish in his desire to learn more about himself, about daemons, about souls, and that he wants to help others who do not have the luck he has, or the chance he has to be free, before he meets Genji, and there’s often times he looks at Yuuna and wonders just how much the daemon truly dislikes him for keeping her from Genji, but he’s grateful she never spoke against him after that first rocky day.

He hopes she understands that he feels far too lucky, and that it’s not fair for him to have this, if others can’t.

She supports him, stabilizes him, protects him without a single word of disappointment, and in this time, Zenyatta builds himself, piece by piece, fraction by fraction, to become himself.

An omnic who was not meant to have a soul, or a daemon, and now has both –even if he had to steal her from someone else first.

He knows that the day they meet, he and Genji, will be the day Yuuna leaves him, and then he’ll be alone.

Zenyatta doesn’t begrudge her that –her entire life she’s been someone’s daemon, until Zenyatta’s existence had ripped her from her safety. He will not keep her, when it is time for her to go, not when Genji was left alone because of him.

Whatever will become of him the day he meets Genji, he needs to learn to stand on his own, because if Genji does not wish to be around him, he’ll leave him, and Yuuna will go back to Genji, and Zenyatta needs…

He needs to know he can have a stability on his own. A balance. That there will be no holes in his core, once Yuuna is gone.

Because of this, Zenyatta turned his back to Japan, to the idea of Genji there, and instead moved towards Nepal, begging the Shambali for a chance to learn under them, and then…

And then, tucked within the Shambali monastery, Zenyatta finds the Iris.

The light of it makes Zenyatta feel whole for the first time, warm and welcoming, and within its glow, Zenyatta sees–

Sees the shadow of every daemon ever existed, shadows of daemons glittering in golden light that tricks his optics to appear like sand, or perhaps dust, shapes of daemons long gone whose memories remain within the Iris, and the shapes of the daemons of omnics who cannot have them yet, who aren’t ready, waiting within its glow, and feels…

Loved.

The Iris is love, and the Iris loves him, too.

For the first time, Zenyatta thinks maybe he was meant to exist, even if he caused pain to others by existing. That maybe it is alright to live, and become his own person, and aid others, and maybe…

Maybe he can make sure other omnics have the chance to become, as well.

And maybe he can make this his life, after Yuuna leaves.

Maybe he can make himself complete thanks to the Iris.


	3. 03

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter contains a slight bit of blood! that's a mild warning, because it's not descriptive.

**Chapter 03**

Sapanā is beautiful, Genji thinks, as he moves quietly in the shadows of the Shimada compound.

He thinks back to the first tense months, when they had been at odds, when Sapanā had been quiet and reserved, not answering whenever Genji spoke to him but fluttering close regardless, creating a hopeful tightness inside Genji’s chest.

He remembers how different it was, to learn to work with a daemon that wasn’t Yuuna, because Sapanā didn’t get him right away like she had, and how happy he had felt the first time Sapanā had finally shifted forms, changing from the butterfly into a cat to inch closer, little by little, until Genji had finally won over his own hesitation and touched his fur.

How good it had felt, the jolt of excitement mixed with regret, because even then, his first thought still went to Yuuna.

Now, Sapanā’s form rarely changes from felines, and usually remains a cat, lean with short, lush fur that almost looks golden in the light. Genji wonders if that will be his last, final form when he settles, and feels a pang of regret because… Yuuna, somewhere he doesn’t know, has probably settled without him, and foreign eyes have overseen it. Not him.

Genji wonders a lot about her appearance.

It’s been five years, and he still wakes up every morning and his first thought goes to her, but… it’s been alright.

He’s grown, and Sapanā with him –beautiful, deathly Sapanā, whose fangs are sharp and dangerous, who growls at the daemons of his father and his associates whenever they’re around Genji, like he wants to protect Genji since Yuuna isn’t here to do it herself.

This daemon isn’t bound to their family like Yuuna, they whisper, suspicious and angered, he could reveal all their secrets, he should not know anything– and Sapanā grows bigger, his fur puffing out to show his rage, and they quieten, back down, disgruntled at his open challenge.

Things at home are… not good.

Hanzo avoids him, disappointed whenever Genji fights off their father’s control and leaves to have fun with his friends, his daemon Jane watching him leave with regret, like she knows something Genji doesn’t.

Their father’s attitude has only grown worse, over the years –and with Genji now twenty, yet feeling just as young as he had at fifteen, if only taller and less childish, they clash more often than not.

Genji sees more than they think, after all. He sees Hanzo’s bags under his eyes, exhausted with the lessons their father only imparts to him, and him alone, as the heir. He sees the way Hanzo’s shoulders drop when he thinks he’s alone. He sees their father leave earlier every day, and come back later every night, sometimes missing a guard, and new faces get hired over and over, until Genji can’t remember any of them having been there longer than a year.

He knows his father’s job is growing bigger and more dangerous, and that he’s battling with the elders for decisions, and he does not win all of them.

His father sends people to Genji, to train him. They leave him bloody and beaten on the tatami floor, sweaty and defeated, but he improves every day, and every day he feels closer to unlocking his dragon. He knows Hanzo already has unlocked his own, though Genji has never seen it, and soon he will have it tattooed on his body to seal their connection.

One day, Genji will have his own as well, the highest honour one of his family could ever have –a spirit gracing him with a truce.

So far, though, he aches every day, nurses his bruises and his wounds and continues to fight, even as he spends the rest of his time pretending none of it bothers him, going out with friends and fooling around –though not too much, as Sapanā chides him, and Genji has vowed to always listen to his soulmate daemon.

Genji looks at Sapanā, and thinks that he needs no dragon. The only ally he has, the only one he needs, is this daemon he’s tied to, and Yuuna, and no one else.

He knows his father wants Hanzo to train as the next head, and that he thinks Genji is resentful for not being picked… and he’s wrong. Genji doesn’t want to be part of the yakuza. He wants something more, for his life.

He wants to travel, and see the world. He wants to have fun, yes, but also find something worthwhile to do.

Genji wants so much, and none of it is here, in Japan.

Yuuna isn’t in Japan, either, and neither is his soulmate. And… and Genji maybe wants to meet with them, too, even if they’re a little kid. Because maybe they won’t get together, because eww, Genji’s not into _that_ , but they could be friends?

And then he wonders what his soulmate is doing, and if Yuuna is behaving, and teaching them all Genji knows –and then he has to blush, because well. Maybe Yuuna shouldn’t. Genji was a bit of an ass, when he was younger. He still is, sometimes, and is mature enough to admit it.

At least to himself.

Sapanā slinks closer and rubs himself against Genji’s ankle, purring quietly. “You’re lost in thought,” he says, his voice low and rumbling. “Make sure to tie them up properly, else you will never return.” A moment, then he adds “Wouldn’t that be a disgrace?”

Genji snorts, shoulders shaking in mirth.

“So, what did you hear?” he asks instead, and Sapanā flops down at his feet, sounding disgruntled.

“Too much,” he admits, and Genji feels a pang of worry. “Your father was contacted by a man. They had a meeting to talk about it. The man belongs to another group, and they want alliance with the Shimada. They want to expand the Shimada family’s power around the world, use your father’s connections to secure things here. I couldn’t get too close without them noticing, but they keep forgetting I can change shapes.”

“Not for long,” Genji teases him, and Sapanā scoffs.

“Until I can no more,” he replies, rolling belly up. “Until then, I will be your silent ear, Genji.”

Genji misses Yuuna a lot. Every day, he reserves a thought for her and one for his mother, and isn’t it weird that he misses his daemon more than his mom, who has been dead since he was eight? But that’s how it is.

Genji misses Yuuna, but he’s grown fond of Sapanā and his endless curiosity, his joy for life and every little thing he learns, like he’s never seen any of them before, and the dedication his soulmate daemon has for him.

Sapanā is not Yuuna, but he thinks… he thinks they would like one another greatly, were they ever to meet.

Looking down at his soulmate daemon, Genji notices his ears twitching, his tail flicking around, and frowns.

“What troubles you, Sapanā?”

“They hurt you,” he murmurs, and he bares his teeth again. “The men your father brings here. They hurt you, and I am held down, treated like a youngling, forced to watch because I cannot take part. Because I am not yours.”

“You are mine,” Genji grits his teeth.

It is true that his body aches after training, and that his family dislikes Sapanā to a degree he cannot understand, but his family is wrong, just like with everything else.

“You are mine,” he repeats, his tone lowering to a hiss. “You might not be half of my soul, but you’re here with me, and it matters. You’re still a part of me. We are still connected. You’re more family than any of them are, anyway.”

And it’s not surprising that his words are true, and honest, and he doesn’t regret them.

He loves his brother, but it feels less like Hanzo is his brother nowadays and more like he’s a stranger. For every tiny step forwards he makes, trying to get closer again, it seems he takes three back, and it’s… exhausting.

Hanzo is still family, though. Father, no matter how strict, also is still family. It’s the rest of them that Genji feels like cursing.

Sapanā purrs, softer than he does normally, and bumps his head against Genji’s calf, right where there’s a bruise under his sock, and Genji suppresses the urge to wince. Tomorrow, he’ll have to go through it all again, so there’s no point wishing those bruises to stop hurting. There will be more, then.

He doesn’t hesitate to take Sapanā into his arms, the purr intensifying as he presses his soulmate daemon into his chest, fingers kneading through the soft fur, and closes his eyes, leaning back into the wall.

He’s grateful they are together, at least.

Slowly, as he feels the rumbling of Sapanā’s purring, Genji relaxes, and it feels like every weight he has, every ache, every dark thought, is slowly fading, like magic. Even the bruises don’t hurt as much, and…

Genji’s eyes snap open.

The bruises don’t hurt. It’s been weeks of constant violence and training, he forgot how it feels to not ache… until now.

He looks down, eyes wide, and sees Sapanā’s body glow golden.

It’s faint, but it’s there, and the more the glow goes on, the less Genji hurts, fatigue slipping off his body like a layer of dust under a wet cloth, and he’s–

“Sapanā…?”

Sapanā looks like he’s in trance, the glow increasing a little, and the daemon looks ethereal, and the gold makes Genji’s insides _itch_ … before it snuffs off all of sudden, and Genji shudders, the room feeling instantly colder.

“What…?”

Sapanā’s eyes are half-lidded, and he opens them as he stretches lazily into his arms. “Hmmm…” he says. Then he says nothing else at all.

“Hmmm?” Genji prompts. He thinks he should freak out, maybe, perhaps, but he’s too relaxed, languid, with no pain and feeling rested, and… and then he thinks back at when he was a kid, and… “was that your special power as a soulmate daemon?” he blurts out.

Sapanā laughs, hard and for a very long time.

Then he rolls on his stomach again, snuggling into Genji’s arms. “He did it,” he confesses, slowly, still giggling. It is… weird, to watch him look so pleased of himself, so relaxed and at ease.

Then his words click in Genji’s mind. “He…?”

“My other half. He did it, and for a moment, we were one.”

There is nothing Genji can say, because his mind is wiped blank, and his mouth falls open. “… he… he did?”

“I don’t know how. I could not see him. All I know is that he did it.”

Genji blinks, slowly, unable to connect his soulmate –a five years old kid, and a boy at that– with this. With the soft, golden glow, and then…

He shuffles Sapanā in his arms, tugs his shirt up to reveal his stomach –unblemished, healed. No wounds, no bruises, no scars.

“… perhaps soulmate daemons do not have special powers,” he murmurs, teasing even if his eyes are wide, and Sapanā gently nuzzles his bare stomach, “but there _is_ definitely something special in him, huh?”

He scratches Sapanā’s ear gently, letting silence envelop both of them. He feels… content. Surprised, and he knows less about his soulmate than he did before, if possible, even if he knows now it is a ‘he’, but…

But that was fantastic, and it means that the dragons the Shimada clan controls are not the only unexpected magic this world has to offer. That only makes Genji want to see the outside of his compound even _more_.

And perhaps, he’s a little more tired than he thought, and it will not hit him until the next day, at least.

“Maybe my soulmate is the Dalai Lama,” he finally murmurs, halfway through sleep, lips curled up in a grin. “Wouldn’t that be annoying to my family. A pacifist monk. Now… _that_ would be really an insult to them.”

Sapanā laughs so hard he slips from his arms and onto the ground. Genji smiles, closes his eyes, and dreams of a golden light and a world bigger than the tiny fraction he’s seen so far.

***

There is something in the air that makes Zenyatta feel tense.

He does not know what, but… it is like foreboding, like someone is watching him from a distance, eyes he cannot perceive except with his senses, and it makes him feel… watched. Uneasy. Trapped.

Followed.

It disrupts his attention during the daily meditation, enough that Mondatta notices, and sends him out, knowing better than to force Zenyatta through the motions when he does not feel it.

Yet, Zenyatta still cannot stand still. He fumbles with himself, circuits buzzing with static, fingers twitching, attention wavering as he cannot focus on anything, not even collecting fruit from the garden, or flowers from the few bushes scattered around the grounds of the monastery.

He cannot listen to the chatter of his fellow monks, or even care when a storm of birds in flight passes above his head, stark black against the faded blue of the sky.

It feels like a storm is approaching, and he stands into its eye.

Ever since his arrival to the monastery, Zenyatta has never felt like this before, and it drives him mad.

“Will you _stop_?” Yuuna doesn’t snap, not really, but she’s been feeling upset since early morning, like she should be running somewhere and can’t, and is perfectly aware that it’s Zenyatta’s emotions reflected through her that makes her feel like this. “Zen, calm down!”

She paces around, her enormous paws completely silent on the pavement of the path leading to the main building of the monastery, and when she sits down abruptly, Zenyatta almost bumps into her.

It’s been years since she settled, her size big enough to be threatening without taking up too much space, but Zenyatta likes to play with her paws as she flicks her tail into his faceplate. He’s often wondered what it says about Genji, that his daemon is a bobcat, but every time he considers the idea, he feels a weight in his chest, like a stone.

He’s afraid about learning too much about him –he’s afraid to mention him to Yuuna, afraid she will look at him and say it’s time, time to pack up and go find him, because it’s unfair Zenyatta knows Genji’s name, and that he lives in Japan, and could find him with a quick internet search, but Genji knows nothing of him, not his name, nor his nationality… nor the fact that he is an omnic, and not a human.

Zenyatta doesn’t feel like he can compare, and if not for Yuuna’s presence, reminding him constantly that somewhere in the world, someone is waiting for him, for her, Zenyatta would allow himself to be lulled in the peace of the monastery, in this new life.

He’s comfortable, like this.

(He also lies to himself about not wanting to travel, not wanting to do more with his life, now that he’s almost mastered Transcendence. It’s easy to do so, when there is so much to do here, in the monastery. It’s easy.)

Or he was, until today.

“I… can’t,” he murmurs, and his synth glitches.

The sensation swells inside him like a tide, and he drops on the ground, shaking, his senses opening to the world in askance.

He has to do something, but what? Why does he feel like he needs to run, to scream, to…

It happens in a fraction of a second.

Time fragments, scatters, slows down to its smallest parts. Freezes.

Zenyatta looks down, slowly, at Yuuna’s twitching whiskers, at her body by his feet, and he feels it before he sees it –a cloud of discord, rushing to surround Yuuna’s body like a thick, impenetrable mist.

His forehead array burns brightly in shock as the discord wraps around Yuuna, watches her stiffen, a startled, gurgling scream coming out of her throat like a whine, his senses spread out to feel her pain like a stab into his core, and the ghost of it slams into him, so powerful he stutters and falls back, away from her, and–

Her body fractures, like it is decomposing in front of him, and Zenyatta’s circuits jump-start as he realises– she is dying.

Right in front of him, for no reason he can discern, Yuuna steps through the thin line between life and death, and her body starts to dissolve.

Zenyatta’s entire body jolts so hard he falls on his hands and knees, rejection so strong it comes like a tidal wave from the depths of his core, disbelief clearing his mind from thoughts, leaving him sharp and calmer than he’s ever been.

Yuuna is dying, and that _cannot_ happen, and Zenyatta

_won’t_

_let_

_it_

_happen._

A quarter of a half of a second passes, and Zenyatta’s frame explodes, and he transcends.

The world fades into gold, threads of light and glittery matter that Mondatta calls Dust surround him like a beautiful mist, and Zenyatta sobs as he watches Yuuna’s body, so completely covered in Dust slowly undo itself, her spirit, the shadow of her that is ready to leave the world, for no reason, for nothing, detaching itself from the particles of matter of her decaying body.

He reaches out –six arms answer his call, and they wrap around her body, gently, tightly, refusing to let go, and he pours the light of the Iris into Yuuna inch by inch, forcing the Dust to settle back on her like a blanket, protecting her, keeping her together against whatever force is trying to take her apart.

Dimly, Zenyatta understands what it means –there is no danger at the monastery yet Yuuna is dying… but in Japan, where Genji lives, danger has struck, and Genji is…

_‘No,’_ his entire being soars up in denial, and he pushes. _‘No,’_ he repeats, and his core aches under the pressure as he pushes further, and his servos burn and hiss, and his chassis heats up, and his processors fry, yet he pushes more, and says _‘No,’_ a third time, because there is no way in this universe or any other that he will let himself part from Yuuna like this, that he will allow Genji to die, alone, somewhere he cannot reach.

Even if his entire self burns down, his soul melting away, unable to go anywhere, unable to go into the Iris, Zenyatta won’t let Genji die. Won’t let Yuuna die.

The light fades.

Zenyatta’s body crumples on the ground, Yuuna tightly clutched into his arms.

His forehead array flickers once, then again, then fades into nothing.

His fans stop. His core stutters and powers down.

In his arms, Yuuna shivers, whines deep in her throat, her unconscious mind remembering the ghost of a pain so great it almost undid her from reality, and the afterimage of a golden dragon chases her in her dreams.

In his arms, Yuuna breathes, and her heart continues to beat.

Five thousand kilometres from the monastery, in Japan, Genji falls to his knees, choking on blood, Sapanā screaming where he’s chained to the floor, his form sluggishly trying to shift one last time, trying to reach him.

Genji watches his brother with his eyes wide, pleading, and Hanzo unsheathes his katana from the depths of his younger brother’s body, stare at the red gushing from the wound, from Genji’s mouth, eyes full of tears, and feels regret carve itself into his heart, never to leave again.

He’s horrified, and the hand that struck his brother feels like it belongs to someone else.

He turns around and runs, deaf to the screamed pleas of his soulmate daemon, Jane, begging him to go back. Begging him to stop.

He does not stay to watch his brother die, discarded on the floor of their ancestral home like a broken doll.

He does not see Sapanā break free from the chain, almost choking on the collar around his neck, too tight on the body of the tiger he becomes.

He does not see the way Sapanā stumbles over to Genji’s body, panicking, falling on top of him and getting his new fur drenched in red.

Hanzo does not see the light surge from Sapanā’s body, wrapping itself around Genji’s corpse.

He does not see the way Genji shakes, and trembles, and takes a shuddering breath, then another, as his heart starts up again, fighting, as the afterimage of a dragon surges from the golden light, coated in particles of golden Dust, and soars from Genji’s body only to sink into Sapanā’s before disappearing.

Outside the compound, the storm rages on.

When the rain finally stops, and the first sunray peeks from the dark clouds, Hanzo is long gone, hair chopped off and left behind on the tatami of his bedroom, a penance for a crime he can never undo.

Genji’s body is also gone.


	4. 04

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, warning for some blood in the first part of this chapter -because we see the genji death thing a little more. :>

**Chapter 04**

If Genji had known he’d die today, he would have done things differently.

There’s something to be said about hindsight, but in his life, Genji has never regretted something as much –even if he is not sure what he would have done, even if he had known.

The day starts normally enough, for a day of mourning.

Father… is dead.

It happened quickly, painlessly. They brought his body back home, a quiet hush among his subordinates, and Genji, who had not been there to see it, only finds out through the grapevine. He’d been away, spending time flirting and having fun with his friends.

His father is dead, and when he comes home, Genji can’t make himself go see his body, even if it’s on display, his men mourning the loss.

He’s dead, he’s _gone_ , all that’s left of him is a cold corpse, a bloodied weapon, and many regrets.

Whenever Genji passes by the open door of his father’s study, he glances inside, expecting to see the shape of his father’s daemon sleeping by the desk, in all her beauty, then flinches, reminded of their death, and hurries away.

Hanzo prepares for the funeral in silence, Jane perched on his shoulder. She’s a peregrine falcon, her eyesight sharp, but she keeps her head down, nowadays, every time Hanzo and Genji meet in the corridors.

Genji has not seen his brother alone in months –only ever accompanied by one of the elders, or surrounded by his guards. When they meet eyes, it feels like there’s nothing behind Hanzo’s eyes to stare back at him, and Genji feels the reckless, stupid need to go out and party like nothing happened, only to see if Hanzo will stop him. Just to make sure there’s something left of his brother, behind that mask of convenience.

They will hold the funeral in the morning, and right afterwards, Hanzo will become officially the clan head.

Everything has to be perfect, Genji mocks in his mind, lips curling up in distaste.

Hanzo is the new leader of the clan, and Genji will…

Genji will leave.

Part of Genji feels… relieved, and he resolutely pushes the guilt down, until he can’t feel it anymore. He will leave, go away without looking back, carrying with him only the good memories, not the bad ones, and… and…

And he needs to speak with Hanzo, before he goes.

Because there is a truth Genji has, that he knows he owes to his brother.

Overwatch came, and offered Genji a way out.

Out of his family, out of the yakuza, out of the situation that closes down on him like a clamp, tightening the more he struggles.

Doom his family, his clan, testify against them for their illegal activities, and be taken from them to work for Overwatch.

They will be waiting for him outside the compound, before the funeral. If Genji accepts, he will go with them.

If… there is no if.

Genji _knows_ he will accept. It leaves a bad taste in his mouth, because there’s so much that can go wrong, and he doesn’t want to betray his own brother, even if they are estranged now.

He just has to believe that Hanzo will forgive him, for leaving him behind.

But maybe, if they talk… he could take Hanzo with him, maybe… maybe they can learn to be brothers again, maybe…

At his side, Sapanā gives him strength. Without him there, he might have hesitated, but it feels like lately they’ve grown to share a mind –he has Sapanā as his support. He knows they can do it.

They _will_ leave.

Leave their house, maybe leave Japan. Become part of something bigger.

Maybe even find…

He’s relieved that he won’t have to be at the funeral. He loved his father, but it feels like he hasn’t seen him in years, even when they met every day. He’s not attached to the corpse that was left behind, not when he knows the truth –that his father’s soul is gone, together with his daemon, and thus, what is left behind is not the man Genji loved.

When Hanzo comes to his room at dawn, asking him to follow him to the dojo, Genji goes willingly.

It’s the first time his brother has addressed him in private since… forever. Genji can’t help but feel a seed of hope inside his chest as his heart twirls in anticipation. They will talk alone, and he knows, he _knows_ , that Jane will be on his side, and then–

Genji believes there’s hope for his brother, still.

He’s wrong.

“How dare you,” Hanzo seethes. His tone is sharp and aggressive, but his eyes are empty. On his shoulder, Jane looks defeated, tugging at his shoulder. “Turn this clan… this family… into a joke. Bringing shame upon us! Do you not see it, Genji? That you are the laughing stock of the Shimada clan? And it is why I must be judge… and executioner, today. Before I can take over after father, I must cleanse our clan of your grievous mistakes.”

Genji has no chance to even speak –Hanzo does all the speaking for them both.

When Hanzo unsheathes his katana and points it at Genji’s chest, demanding them to fight, Genji still thinks it’s a misunderstanding, even with Jane’s voice raising in the silence of the dojo, asking Hanzo to think, to stop.

He doesn’t expect Hanzo to strike his own daemon, sending her on the ground and away from them, leaving Genji, Sapanā and Jane to stare at him, incredulous, hurt.

Things start to spiral down, and then the worst happens –men surround them, and they take Sapanā down. They shoot at him with a sleeping dart and Genji finally realises this is serious, with a sudden pang of understanding.

The Yakuza won’t let one of their own leave –not even the second son of their dead boss.

Sapanā’s body is strong, and he fights against the effects of the drug, but it’s enough for the men following his brother’s orders to rush towards him, gloves on, and chain him to the floor, away from where Genji is.

They barely touch him, but Genji still feels a lurch of bile rising in his throat as he’s forced to watch, muscles tense, aware that a wrong move will be the end for them both.

It’s wrong. It’s so wrong he wants to vomit, shake and scream, but Hanzo’s stare is merciless, and empty, and he’s in enough shock his reaction time is slower.

They fight.

Genji’s form is sloppy, more scared for Sapanā and Hanzo than himself, his sword familiar in his grip, his opponent a stranger in his brother’s body.

He still doesn’t _understand_.

And then it’s too late to even begin.

Hanzo’s twin dragons surge towards him in a glorious display of power, spiralling together, destructive, invincible, and Genji thinks about his own dragon, thinks about protecting himself –and cannot make himself summon it against his own brother.

It’s his mistake, and his one regret in the years that come, the start of that anger that consumes him until there is no other thought within him except that.

But in that moment, there’s no anger –just a single, heartfelt decision… and it is his one mistake.

He hits the scrolls on the wall so hard he’s left wheezing, Sapanā’s breathless scream echoing in his ears, calling for his name, followed by Jane’s loud, panicked “no!”–

Hanzo’s blade digs into his sternum, sliding inside him like butter, twists sideways and pushes, and a second late, Genji is impaled into the wall, eyes wide and pain exploding inside him like a bomb.

Blood bubbles up to his lips as he tries to speak, and can’t.

Panic, pain, blood –he can’t breathe.

He looks into Hanzo’s eyes –his brother, the man he thought would be by his side, as disillusioned by the elders and their clan as he himself was, and coughs blood where he’s trying to speak.

Why?

The man around them leave, satisfied with Hanzo’s actions. They’re left alone.

Jane is screaming, loud and insistent, loud, erratic, she’s pleading – and Hanzo _ignores_ _her_ , and instead turns towards Sapanā, calculating.

“It is only mercy,” Hanzo murmurs, low enough that Genji can’t hear it over the blood rushing inside his ears, removes the blade from Genji’s chest with a wet sound, and he staggers and leans on the wall not to fall, then Hanzo strides towards Genji’s soulmate daemon, blade dripping blood on the tatami mats.

He can’t–

He’s going to die.

He’s going to die, and he hasn’t seen anything. Hasn’t travelled, hasn’t mastered his own dragon, hasn’t found his soulmate to befriend, hasn’t found Yuuna yet–

Yuuna.

Genji is going to die, and Yuuna will die, too. And he will never see her again.

But Hanzo is raising his weapon on Sapanā, his soulmate daemon, and Genji’s attention snaps sharply to him, his mind empty of everything else except this.

His body hurts, blood dripping from his mouth, tasting coppery and disgusting, and Genji can’t really feel his arms anymore, or his legs…

He moves, stumbles, almost falls, but desperation drives him forth, and he feels a sudden surge of strength as his dragon comes to the surface, not summoned but answering nonetheless, spurring him on, just for this last step he needs to take–

The katana falls, Sapanā snarling at Hanzo, and Genji’s there, mercifully, standing between them, and once again welcomes the weapon into his body.

Again, they look at one another, but Genji’s gaze is veiled with pain, consciousness wavering, and he doesn’t see Hanzo’s eyes widen. He doesn’t see his hand shake as he stumbles back from him, uncertainty and realisation dawning on him as he tugs his katana out of Genji’s body.

Tears run down his eyes as Genji falls on his knees in front of Hanzo.

He has no energy left. He’s done all he could.

His limbs are heavy, and he can’t breathe, choking on the blood as he falls down, defeated, eyes rolling back. He cannot protect Sapanā anymore. Nor himself.

He’s going to die.

He’s going to die, and that’s it… but at least… at least Sapanā knows he loves him. They’ve been together for so long, and he is sure Sapanā knows already, but… but he was a stupid little shit, when they met, and in the back of Genji’s mind he still worried that maybe… maybe Sapanā didn’t really _know_.

Maybe now he will. Maybe he can be pardoned for it, now.

Genji’s consciousness leaves him slowly, darkness expanding from the edge of his eyes until it covers everything.

He can’t really feel his body anymore, but… but he feels is Sapanā’s weight fall on top of him, heavy and reassuring and familiar, his scent like home for him.

Oh. Yes. Maybe Sapanā _does_ know.

Genji is sorry, but as he fades away, his lips twitch up in a small, content smile.

He won’t die alone.

***

“My light, are you sure?”

“I have never been more sure of something, Mondatta.”

A slow, deep exhale of artificial breath.

“… alright.”

Optical receptors close, and Mondatta’s head tilts down, looking mournful.

Zenyatta’s core aches at the sight. He knows Mondatta understands, that he knows Zenyatta has to do this –but it is difficult for him to leave the monastery, especially with his legs in such a bad situation.

It is the price he had to pay, and Zenyatta feels no regrets.

He knows his actions would have consequences. To be able to reach for the Iris is a gift that Zenyatta has been offered, and he harnessed it to fight against its very essence, to prevent a soul from disappearing. Preventing a daemon from becoming one with the Iris… no one ever tried something like this, let alone succeed… until he did.

Until he saved Yuuna from certain death.

For this –for his actions, for his decision, Zenyatta accepts his punishment and does so gladly.

One of them is his health.

He overtaxed his body, harnessing the Iris for so long, and he had to pay with his own mobility, his legs compromised enough that he can only walk for little, short bouts before they give in under his weight and refuse to work anymore.

When Zenyatta wakes, after transcending to save Yuuna’s life, he is in his cot at the monastery. The room is quiet and dark, and Yuuna rests on his chest, her soft breathing warming him and reassuring him that she is alive.

His logs are missing slots, his internal clock is misaligned, and looking at the small window doesn’t really tell Zenyatta much about how late it is –it’s dark outside, but it could be simply due to the rain.

Body warm and comfortable, Zenyatta does not want to move… except when he tries to shift a little, his legs ache, in a way he can’t explain, stealing a few seconds from his logs as he loses himself to the pain.

He’s hurt –but this pain cannot compare to what Genji felt.

Somewhere in the world, Genji came close to dying, and it is all Zenyatta’s fault.

The thought drains him of all his energy, and Zenyatta’s forehead array fades as he stares into the ceiling, unable to think about anything else except that.

Genji almost died, and it is only because Zenyatta, in his selfishness, refused to go and find him. If Yuuna had been with him… if only Zenyatta had sought him out…

And now, it’s too late to regret.

He can only begin to make amendments, and live in penance for his mistakes.

Mondatta arrives much later, finding Zenyatta on the cot, Yuuna still asleep, and they talk for a very long time.

It took him two weeks to wake due to the strain to his body, and it takes him one more to be able to stand –and only a few minutes to find out that his life will be different.

Zenyatta can live with that.

He stands, studies, and learns to live with this disability, day after day. It makes the work at the monastery harder, and in turn makes the job of his brothers and sisters harder, as well… and to work around this, Zenyatta learns to hover instead, using his omnic energy to power through.

It is slow, slower than walking, and lifting weights is more difficult… but he can do it.

There are things he needs to do, things that require him to leave the monastery, and with this goal in mind, Zenyatta throws himself into his training until he can fight and protect himself even while hovering, finds his weak spots and his strengths, and carves, together with Mondatta, weapons he can use.

All along, Yuuna remains by his side.

She’s subdued, mourning –when Zenyatta tells her he wants to leave, she says nothing, but nods and lets him lean on her when his legs wobble.

She barely steps away from him unless she is fetching him things, and he lets her, and watches as they grow more in tune with one another, until there are days Zenyatta feels almost envious of Genji for being her other half, instead of himself.

This is one of the thoughts he has to battle with the most, but Zenyatta will not deny the truth of his feelings, even if they bring him shame. He owes it to the both of them.

Still, he thinks, as he watches Yuuna by his side glance up at Mondatta’s dove daemon, Śānti, perched on Mondatta’s shoulder, they will be alright. They have each other, and that is more than enough.

The second price he had to pay for his transgression is… different.

The Iris within Zenyatta is tainted, now.

In a way, if Zenyatta has to be honest, he does not see that as a punishment –merely as a warning. The Iris is welcoming, and it is benign… but it is not all good. The Iris is _balance_ , and within balance one must see darkness, not just light.

Until now, Zenyatta has been able to harness the Iris’ light, and this is another trial for him to master –face the darkness within the Iris, face his own darkness, his own weaknesses, and learn to overcome them. The Iris has gifted him Discord, and he will do his best to not let it swallow him whole.

And now, two months later, Zenyatta is leaving the monastery, with Mondatta’s acceptance.

“Thank you,” he murmurs.

He’s kneeling on the floor, right in front of Mondatta, and feels Mondatta’s stare on him like a weight, and bows deeply again. Mondatta makes a soft, broken sound.

“I know I should not feel the way I do,” Mondatta murmurs, in a quiet confession. “But I thought I had lost you before, brother, and now it seems I will lose you once more.”

“Oh, Mondatta…” Zenyatta stands up slowly and reaches out, wraps his brother into a hug so tight he feels the flutter of Mondatta’s core against his chassis, and his forehead array stutters. “I understand, but I promise, you will never lose me. But… I do have to go. I _have_ to.”

“I know. You seek to find him.”

“Yes.”

He wants to say more –wants to thank Mondatta for all he’s done for him, for guiding him to be a better himself than he could have ever hoped to be. Wants to tell him how much Mondatta means to him –how they might not be bonded by blood or metal, but there is a connection between them that Zenyatta can only address as ‘family’.

He wants to curl in Mondatta’s arms and weep, for all the mistakes he’s done, but he doesn’t.

He wants to thank him for shaping him into what he is… but he does not do that, either.

He simply holds Mondatta close, their forehead pressed together, and murmurs his name softly, reverently, as Śānti flutters down to coo and rub her little beak against Yuuna’s soft fur.

They will see one another again, he knows that –but until then, this will be a goodbye.

The world is too big, and Zenyatta needs to find Genji.

When they leave, there is fresh snow on the ground and the sun has barely peeked from the tips of the mountains surrounding the monastery. The air is crisp and cold against his chassis, but it feels refreshing, and new.

Yuuna stretches by his side, her form prepared for the cold more than Zenyatta’s own metal body, and she nudges his hand gently when he hesitates in front of the bridge that connects the monastery to the path leading down to the village.

“I’m sorry,” he says, loud and clear, so she will hear. “For taking so long.”

Her tail hits his leg as it swishes around.

“You are a stupid omnic, Zen,” she scoffs, “if you think there was any better time to leave. We can only follow the road that is open for us to take. Isn’t that what old man says all the time?”

Startled, Zenyatta chuckles quietly. “It surprises me Mondatta never heard you call him like that.”

“He has,” Yuuna replies, sounding pleased. “He and Śānti don’t mind. It makes them laugh.”

Zenyatta’s forehead array blinks in surprise, before a delighted laughter leaves his synth. “I see,” he says, and a knot in his core unfurls, just a bit.

He steps to the bridge, wincing as his legs shake, folds them underneath him, rises to hover, and then they’re off.

***

Overwatch is nothing like Genji thought it would be.

By the time he realises this, it’s too late to back down –not that he could.

His original purpose has fallen through –at least for the part that Genji thinks useful. He cannot be offered freedom anymore, while dying on the ground. He can still give them information, but by the time he’s awake, by the time he can talk, the Shimada clan is in enough disarray that whatever he could offer is useless and backdated.

Genji has no more usefulness, but thankfully, Overwatch can still make use of him… by turning him into their weapon.

“Join us,” they tell him while he’s barely aware enough to listen, “take down any enemy we ask you to, and you will be saved. You will be alive to seek out revenge on the one who did this to you.”

Confused, lost and in pain, Genji barely hears them, yet he understands nonetheless.

Hanzo.

Hanzo did this –Hanzo, who raised his hand against Genji’s soulmate daemon. Hanzo, who killed him.

At that moment, Genji doesn’t think about rage, or anger, or hatred. All he can think about is the pain, and the regret, and _not wanting to die_.

He thought he would die, but he really, _really_ does not want to.

Later, he will curse at the oversight, furious with himself for wanting life without knowing what life would be, afterwards, yet Genji will feel satisfied –because being alive, even like this, meant being able to seek Hanzo out and take his revenge.

It comes later, though.

He agrees, scared and alone, Sapanā somewhere he can’t see but close by, and then he loses consciousness again.

When he wakes up, Shimada Genji is dead, and what is left behind has his name, his soulmate daemon, but is not him anymore.

That is the price Genji pays for his life –and he’s not even sure how he survived, in the first place. He thinks, sometimes, about that moment before he fell unconscious, the darkness that surrounded him, how alone he felt then, and wonders if this is all a nightmare, if he’s truly somewhere else, alone, without Sapanā with him, condemned to an existence of emptiness and loneliness, trapped in the dark.

This half-life, ripped from the hands of others piece by piece… is it any better than that?

Sapanā never leaves his side, growling at others, and he knows that had he been alone, he would have given up. But he is with him, and that’s all Genji needs.

They don’t tell him about his brother’s disappearance, at least not at first.

For the first few months, all he knows is pain, and dullness. The anger comes later, with every step he takes in this new body, with every moment of agony he spends attempting to walk again, when he looks down at what’s left of himself and wants to run from it, and he _can’t_.

His hands are made of metal, yet he has sensation in his fingers, almost comparable to what he remembers from before. His chest is a mismatch of scars, skin and more metal, wires coming from his back, from his neck, reminder that there isn’t just blood in his veins but something else, too –coolant, oil, lubricant…

If he looks at himself in the mirror, Genji wants to break it, and then break himself, but he knows Overwatch would just patch him back, even less himself than now, and his hands still, and all he does is look away.

Even his soulmate daemon has changed –there is something of him, of this new form he took, that is _more_ than what it seems. Like there is power within him that makes people falter, but Genji isn’t aware enough to truly notice.

Later, months later, when he’s sent to battle, taking his anger out on those Blackwatch deems deserve it, his daemon quickly becomes feared, even more than Genji himself is, for the way his eyes seem to glow violet, and for the intense, overwhelming _fear_ he causes.

No one can defeat them, not unless they defeat their own inner demons first –but Genji is always faster, and never loses.

When he’s out on a mission, he can almost forget about himself, and every enemy he slays has Hanzo’s face.

It is but a distraction from the hatred that fills him, for the rage that curses through his body, and it is almost a solace when Overwatch’s needs align with his own. He takes pleasure in dismantling part of his once family’s empire, one member at a time, until the Shimada lose control, lose power, lose respect, and Genji’s the one taking pride of it.

Even then, his brother is never there –the man who cursed him to this existence.

At night, Genji stares down at his hands, sees the blood on them of countless deaths, and thinks about his soulmate, the kid slowly growing into the world, with Yuuna by his side. He’s never wanted to see someone more in his entire life, but at the same time the idea of being seen by his daemon now, after everything that happened to him, sickens Genji enough that he rolls off his cot, stumbles into the bathroom and vomits.

Yuuna is Genji’s soul, but Yuuna didn’t have to feel her body dismantled and turned into a weapon for someone else to use.

Still, Genji knows better than to think she would turn him away –because Yuuna is Genji’s, and that bond cannot waver because Genji’s body could not keep up.

His soulmate, though… Genji has no delusions.

If anyone could ever accept him, other than Sapanā, that would be Yuuna, but Genji doesn’t fool himself into thinking that his own soulmate could look upon him with anything but disgust, and pity.

It’s little consolation to know that Genji will never look for him, now. As he is, his own body does not belong to Genji. Overwatch will not let him go unless the entire organization falls on itself, and he cannot see this happening… and because of that, Genji will never be free.

He does wonder, though, if Sapanā is disappointed, or if he does not mind not finding the other half of his soul.

He wonders if he holds it against him, if Genji’s love is enough for him to live forever halved.

Genji doesn’t think he has enough heart, soul, or humanity for himself, let alone for anyone else, but he hopes what he’s got left is enough for Sapanā, at least.

(When he wakes from his nightmares in the middle of the night, limbs aching, heart thundering in his chest, the memory of his brother’s eyes as he struck him dead, Genji thinks it’ll never be enough, but this is all he has, for Genji is not human anymore, and not even taking revenge on Hanzo will bring back what he has lost.)

***

Yuuna cannot cry.

It is a truth for daemons –tears can happen in animals, but it does not mean what it does for humans.

It is also a truth for omnics, Zenyatta is aware of that. He’s felt anguish, pain, sadness, but the way humans express it, liquid leaking from their eyes to mean so many things at different times, is something he cannot do.

At times, he feels the lack of it keenly –in the way people stare at him suspiciously, thinking him emotionless simply because his faceplate has no expression. In the way he feels his own emotions inadequate in the face of tragedies, like there is a block inside his core that makes him process such emotions wrongly. In the way he’s restless, far too rational, seeking to do, to act, when faced with something that makes humans crumble.

Tears would be better than this silence, he thinks, as he watches Yuuna scream, roaring into the sky, unable to cry.

They had to wait until they’re out of the compound, of course, shaking with so many emotions there’s no name for all of them, hard to contain without a way to get them out, but Yuuna knows where to go, and Zenyatta follows –and here, in a small, secluded hill that looks down on Hanamura, Yuuna stops and screams.

Japan is cold, in winter, but not colder than the nights at the Shambali monastery, Zenyatta thinks idly as he looks at the barren trees surrounding the Shimada compound.

They’ve come here, seeking to know about Genji, but all they find is restlessness, anger and suspicious glares.

Shimada Genji, of the Shimada clan, is dead… or at least, presumed so. The blood left behind in the training room, proof of the violence perpetrated against him, remains there as a show of pride, and a challenge to anyone who dares stand up against the Shimada.

Zenyatta, sneaking inside the compound with only Yuuna to direct him and his core cold with worry remains standing in front of it for what feels like forever, trying to understand.

What family could keep a memento of such betrayal as a trophy?

Shimada Soujiro, father of Genji and head of the clan of the Shimada, is dead.

He’s been dead for almost a year, and Zenyatta learns, with his careful questions, that the day of his funeral is the day Genji was executed, in this very room, by his older brother.

That day that Yuuna almost slipped from Zenyatta’s grasp to become one with the Iris is the day Genji was tricked, assaulted and killed.

Shimada Hanzo, Genji’s older brother, is gone –presumed missing after betraying his clan, yet nonetheless its new head.

No one Zenyatta talks to knows what happened to him, or why –there are whispers, though, that say he was sickened by his own actions, and sought penance. Whispers that carry across the length of an arrow, aimed at the clan’s council headmen.

Whispers that say there is regret there, and anguish, for an action that cannot be taken back anymore.

The clan that remains behind lacks its heart, its mind and its head, the Council controlling it as it desperately tries not to fall, but nothing is the same anymore.

Yuuna screams to the sky above, angered and powerless in the face of this betrayal, and Zenyatta stays with her at a respectful distance, part of the pain yet destined to be removed from it at the same time.

Afterwards, while they are still in Hanamura, seeking information, hunting down any news on Genji’s whereabouts, Zenyatta will look around for the reminders of Genji’s old life.

He will see his old bedroom, remained untouched since his death. His trophies, his clothes, his books, all the things he collected to fill the void his family could not, old drawings and scrolls and toys covered in dust.

He will see his name in old games at the local arcade, best times still in the top three, unchallenged.

It’s just a few small things, but they help paint a picture of the Genji who lived before Zenyatta was even born, of that little, awkward kid, of the life that betrayed him so much.

Zenyatta and Yuuna have no idea where Genji is, and no way to find out, for Shimada Genji died almost a year before, and left behind his clan’s name, never to return.

So, Yuuna screams, and Zenyatta mourns, and neither of them cries, no matter the sadness they both feel, the helplessness, the weight of their quest that still rests on their shoulders.

Then, they both move on, and keep searching.


	5. Chapter 05

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some more sads but then not :D :D :D

**Chapter 05**

It’s cold, Genji thinks, idly.

It’s so cold his prosthetic limbs have stopped working.

Part of him is aware of Sapanā’s fangs buried into the thick material of his coat, tugging, panicking, but it’s a relatively distant feeling.

Genji looks up to the white sky surrounded by even whiter mountains, and white treetops covered in snow, and more white coming down on him in a storm, like the world is ending, and when the snow falls on his eyelids and doesn’t melt right away, he thinks it’s quite alright.

In fact, it almost feels like all this white is peaceful, in a way Genji hasn’t felt in forever.

Sapanā is still screaming at him, though even his voice is somewhat distant, cottoned by the snow and the cold.

He’s trying to drag his body out of the hole, but it’s a lost cause, Genji knows.

It was a mistake, to take that path up the mountain, and he’s aware of it now, so obvious. He doesn’t know the mountains enough, and he didn’t realise it would snow this bad, nor that he would end up trapped into a hole that is slowly filling with snow, covering him.

It’s too cold, and he can’t move.

His body hurts –or at least it hurt before, when he could still feel the few human parts he still has. Now it’s unresponsive, and numb, and that suits him just fine.

Genji’s lived many more years than he thought he would, and all of them are forgettable, useless. His expiration date has passed already, and it’s normal he’s rotting now, a weapon with no master to hold it and use it.

He knew it even before he decided to travel here, and get lost on one of the many mountain paths… a weapon without a wielder has no worth.

Hah.

Now Genji will finally die, for good, and he might hate the very idea, but he doesn’t have the energy to fight it anymore, and maybe… maybe it’s for the best.

If he could go back in time, face Hanzo again, the right decision would be to gladly accept Hanzo’s katana, make sure he aims correctly, this time, since what came next was Genji’s second worst decision after deciding to trust Hanzo the morning of their father’s funeral.

Overwatch did want his help, but it did not come without a price, even if that price was Genji’s soul.

A weapon. And the only thing that kept Genji from giving in, from bowing and losing all of himself, is Sapanā.

Not the cowboy he was paired up with, who has a wolf as his daemon whose cold and calculating eyes remind Genji of someone he doesn’t want to think about. Not the medic and her swan daemon, fierce in battle and snippy in the med-bay. Not his captain, whose daemon trails after him and feels wrong, somehow, like its form shouldn’t be that of an owl but something else entirely. Not the commander and his Doberman daemon, who rolls on his back and wags his tail but who can be threatening in such a way that no daemon at the base can stand up to it. Not the gorilla, who has no daemon and yet is intrigued by the idea, who stares at the omnics who have their own and creates an AI to be his friend, and has people mock him in the corridors of the base for trying to manufacture his own daemon, no matter how many times he says that’s not what he is doing. Not the pilot who zips through time, whose daemon is a hummingbird that never stays still, zipping across the base, so far away from her it’s unnatural, scaring newbie agents because of that. Not the Blackwatch medic and her snake daemon who everyone thinks is a coral snake… except it is not.

Genji has been alone for a long time.

The only regret he has is that he never did get to face his brother again, but even this hatred is fading, receding, leaving behind a blessed, dull silence inside his mind.

Everything is muted, distant, cold. It suits him.

This is not what he wanted, when he started this trip.

Restless, without a home or a place to go, Genji has been travelling for months now, since Overwatch was disbanded. Sapanā was just as restless, pushing for them to leave the bigger cities and travel across the empty plains instead, then to the mountains, following some sort of call that neither can understand.

They’ve never been in this part of the world, not even while on Overwatch missions, yet every little village they pass by feels some kind of familiar, and as they travel, Genji hears more and more often talks of the Shambali.

He knows they live somewhere close by, up in the mountains, but there’s no curiosity inside him anymore.

One morning, Genji realises that even without wanting to, they have travelled close enough that it would take them only a couple more days to climb the mountain and go to the Shambali monastery.

Genji doesn’t really want to see more machines and turns to leave, but Sapanā stops, all four foot planted on the ground, until their bond stretches and Genji has to halt.

“Let’s go to them,” Sapanā proposes, quietly.

“Why?” he asks, though he has little care of where they go, now.

“… why not?” his soulmate daemon replies, and… well. That’s enough, he thinks. If Sapanā wants to go there, Genji will go, for him.

Deep inside, he knows why –his soulmate daemon hopes that maybe a monastery will give him a place to find himself. He doesn’t have the heart to tell him that Genji doesn’t feel like he has the right of it, or the energy for it.

He thinks they will both be disappointed, but for him, he will still go.

Now, he suspects, Sapanā is feeling the brunt of that bad decision.

He’s dying, and it’s not by his own hand, or through reckless fighting… but simply because sometimes it happens. Snowstorms happen.

Death happens.

Sapanā will survive, though –his fur might not be the best to deal with such temperatures, but he will survive.

That’s good enough.

Still, Genji tries, one last time, to move his body –to help Sapanā as he tries so hard to dig him out of this hole. He tries, but he can’t, he _can’t_ move, can’t even make himself blink his eyes open, frozen as they are.

Dead weight.

He closes his eyes, and takes a shuddering, deep breath, and relaxes into the snow.

Dimly, he feels Sapanā’s teeth unclench from around his arm. Maybe he understands –Genji is not going anywhere anymore.

It’s alright… they tried. He didn’t mean to die like this. He doesn’t… he doesn’t _really_ want to die. He never did. Not back then, not now… but there’s no way he can survive like this. He’s cold, and he’s tired, and he doesn’t remember the last time he ate, or even considered eating, or drinking.

Genji is too tired to lie to himself, too. If he could go back in time, he would still fight his brother. Because Hanzo had no right to kill him, to doom him to this kind of life, and Genji had every right to want to leave, to want to _live_.

Genji might be a weapon now, but he did… he did see new places. And maybe he never did find Yuuna, and he’s not okay with this, it’s wrong, that he will die before he can see her again, but… but…

He can’t move. He tried. He tried to climb out of the hole so many times, until his fingers froze, until his lungs hurt, until the snow became too cold for him to move.

He’s so tired, and they’re alone, and…

And then.

The pain in his chest starts. It’s a familiar ache, one he recognises even as his mind dulls, and his eyes flutter open in shock. Sapanā is moving –on his own.

Slow, unsteady steps as he walks in the snow, and away from him.

Leaving.

Sapanā is–

Genji’s arms jolt in shock, and a part of him scrambles to stand, to try and stop –it _hurts_ – but Sapanā doesn’t look back, strains, his muscles tense and bulging, and _takes another step_ , fighting with their bond.

It’s torture.

It’s unlike anything Genji ever felt in his life and it’s inside him, where the snow cannot reach to dull the pain. He jolts in the snow, gasping and trying to call for Sapanā to come back but he doesn’t listen, and instead stretches their bond further, strong paws digging into the snow for purchase.

No.

Genji’s mind is screaming for him to come back, to stop, but he can’t make Sapanā come back, and if Genji’s given up, why should he stay only to watch him die?

It’d be better for him to leave now, and never come back.

That would be the right thing to think, but Genji is selfish, and he’s alone, and he’s never been alone, and the agony inside him grows, and grows, and grows–

And then it snaps, and he’s sore, and empty in the absence of pain, and dull, and the shock is enough he can’t breathe.

The bond loosens, and he feels Sapanā run away, and then there’s no other noise but the snow falling on him, his harsh breathing, and the soft sound of his sobs as he’s left behind, all alone, to die.

***

Perhaps, Zenyatta considers as he walks along the barely visible path north of the village, he should have waited there for the storm to pass.

Yuuna, stomping through the snow with careless abandon, does not seem to share his opinion. She strays a little further with every happy bounce, and though Zenyatta is perfectly aware that their bond, that they have worked on for weeks, can withstand more than the few feet that separate them, he still feels a little pang of worry as he watches her roll happily down a small slope and out of sight.

“Do not stray too far, Yuuna,” he calls out, his synth a little glitchy.

She makes a happy little sound of assent, out of sight, but does not return.

Zenyatta sighs, but it is a soft, content sound.

When a message arrived at the monastery, asking for the assistance of one of the monks for a glitched out omnic from one of the nearby villages, Zenyatta was the one appointed to go. His return to the monastery is temporary at best, as he’s simply waiting a month before the roads are free of snow so he can leave again, but after years spent on the road, staying coped in the monastery feels almost wrong.

He needs to keep moving, else he will never find Genji… and not for lack of trying.

It takes them half a day to help, and then they stay the night, because of the dangers of travelling in the dark with the chance of ravines, but as they are on the road now, Zenyatta realises, they should have waited one more night, just to be safe.

Yet watching Yuuna’s ears peak from the snow banks as she rolls, jumps and rumbles in happiness, he thinks maybe it is alright they did not.

The storm hits not too long afterwards, and Zenyatta regrets his hasty thoughts.

Yuuna doesn’t seem to mind, even when Zenyatta can barely see into the distance, and as he to somewhere safe, she chooses to frolic in the snow instead.

The mountain is dangerous during snowstorms, and the population, thanks to the aid of the Shambali, have prepared across the entire area small, secluded safe spots that are insulated against the cold and with some cheap food, water and emergency kits, just in case. It works for both the omnics and the humans living on the mountain, and offers some protection against the elements to any traveller, as long as they mind the signs and find the spots.

Settling into the one Zenyatta found, which is big enough for three people and their daemons, he peeks out to keep an eye on Yuuna, making sure she’s doing alright and will not stray too far in her happiness.

Even with the storm making things difficult, Zenyatta has no trouble admitting the snow is beautiful, and it gives the mountains a soft, shiny look.

As he glances at his own footprints on the path quickly getting filled in by more snow, he feels a small, gentle tug to his core, and his forehead array blinks.

He can feel Yuuna still somewhere outside, not too far, but not visible from where he is looking, but that tug is… it’s different.

It calls for him unlike anything he’s ever felt, not even the tug of his bond with Yuuna when they were working to stretch it past its limits.

Unsteady on his feet, Zenyatta leaves the safe spot and returns outside, falling knees-deep into the freshly fallen snow. He’s suddenly surrounded by it, cold wind blowing against his faceplate, and readjusts his optics to protect them from damage as he looks around.

The tug happens again, more insistent, and he gasps.

He takes only two steps before he has to stop, floating inches above the snow. If he’d tried this years in the past, he would have failed to keep himself in the air with the storm pushing and pulling, but now he’s a master at controlling his omnic energy, and it is no trouble to move away from the secure cave and into his white surroundings.

Zenyatta doesn’t even think about waiting for Yuuna to come back, or call for her –his thoughts are muted, the call-and-tug he feels stronger than anything else.

Something… someone…? is calling for him.

Where?

He doesn’t know but he _has_ to go.

It grows more and more urgent, and he continues to make his way through the woods, optics looking around as he climbs, his core spinning faster and faster with every moment he can’t find what is calling for him.

The top of the crest leaves him exposed to the winds, but he has a good view around him, a meadow and a circle of trees bending under the onslaught of the storm. He looks, squinting as far as he can see, and his core lurches suddenly, like it wants to come out of him, the ache in his core feeling less like pain and more like melancholy.

It builds up inside him like a tide, bittersweet and sad and happy all at once, like it demands him to cry, and he can’t, like relief and longing and grief all at once, anticipation drumming and _thrumming_ inside his circuits like fire as he senses something coming.

The feelings increases, choking him, and Zenyatta squints his optics across the meadow, the snow covering everything like a mantle, searching, waiting…

And then he sees it.

In front of him, on the other end of a small meadow covered in pristine snow, a white tiger stumbles through, and stops, just as confused and aching as he is, and Zenyatta…

Zenyatta looks at the daemon tiger, gasping in shock, and something slides back into place inside him, and

 _settles_.

He knows, in this instant, as the storm rages around them, that the daemon he sees there, in front of him, is his own.

He has a daemon.

The knowledge settles inside him like something he never knew he was missing, warm and soothing like a welcoming caress, and Zenyatta falters, loses control of his omnic energy and drops on his knees, transfixed.

_He has a daemon._

The knowledge stretches on and on inside him like a tide, almost overwhelming him, so great it is as a realisation that he’s taken by surprise, left bare and raw, too surprised to do anything.

He has a daemon.

And then he thinks, this means–

“Help!”

The tiger daemon rushes towards him, stumbles, strong paws making them power through the meadow until they are standing right in front of him, panicked and aching and overwhelmed, just as Zenyatta himself is.

He’s rarely heard the voice of another daemon but Yuuna, he thinks, idly, and this is… this is…

A thought swirls to the forefront of his mind, and the sweet bitterness of this reunion shifts to cold ice. “Help…?”

The daemon stares at him, and Zenyatta thinks he isn’t imagining the same longing he is feeling in the daemon’s eyes. “Genji,” the daemon whispers, urgent, panicking. “I had to– I left him. He’s hurt. He needs help.”

Zenyatta moves before he can think about it.

His legs fail him only a few steps into his run, and he picks himself up instantly, too focused on following the running tiger to consider his own aching legs.

In front of him, the tiger daemon runs, fast and with purpose, leaving behind a clear trace for him to follow –but even if he has to move slower, and he trails behind no matter how hard he pushes himself, there is a thread there, tying together him and this nameless daemon, and that thread is deeper than he’s ever felt with Yuuna. He can _feel_ this daemon run, he feels where he is, and he will _never_ lose him.

Never.

Somewhere behind him, he senses, vaguely, Yuuna stir as she understands something is wrong. She will follow, now. Good.

“So…” Zenyatta murmurs, wondering if the daemon can hear him, even with the storm raging around them, “he had you. All this time, he was not alone.”

The daemon’s ears twitch, but he doesn’t turn around. “Yes,” he hears, barely loud enough for him to catch.

Something tight inside Zenyatta’s chest loosens so completely Zenyatta almost feels faint with relief. “… good.”

Later, he thinks, there will be time to learn about this daemon. Later, he will ask for his name, and later he will wonder, distantly and in shock, at the daemon’s appearance.

He does not feel this majestic, or beautiful, or strong –but perhaps, it is less about him, and more about Genji, in this daemon.

Zenyatta doesn’t think about it, because suddenly the woods open up, and he sees–

Zenyatta sees Genji, fallen into a hole in the snow.

He’s almost invisible in the snow, but the tiger daemon runs by his side, and Zenyatta’s senses, trained to him, find him. His eyes are close, the skin that is visible on his face so pale it’s ghastly, and most of his body is covered in fresh snow, as more and more keep falling on him.

He looks almost dead.

Zenyatta does not even wait to be close enough –he stretches out, reaches deep within himself, and Transcends as he falls by Genji’s side.

Golden light envelops everything, its halo absolute –but something is different.

The light radiates from Zenyatta’s body like a sun, but by his side, his daemon bursts out into light together with him, and like twin stars, the golden light bathes Genji’s body, melting the snow, stopping the storm around them, quietening the noise for a single fraction of an instant.

Zenyatta reaches down, translucent golden hands caressing Genji’s chest, his face, his sides, warm where the snow was cold, and colour returns to the parts of his face that he can see past the mask covering it.

He watches Genji’s eyes flutter open, barely, flicker from him to his daemon. Genji’s body sags, and then he falls unconscious.

When the light from the Iris retreats, leaving Zenyatta reeling, and the storm returns on them as aggressively as before, it feels like the world has shifted on its axis.

“I need your help!” Zenyatta turns towards the daemon, raising his voice over the storm and the winds. “There is a safe place back where you found me, we need to get there until the storm’s passed!”

He knows he’s _his_ , but this is the first time he’s seen him –the first time he’s allowed himself to think he could have one himself… that maybe he won’t be alone, now, when Yuuna leaves– and he finds himself clumsy in his thoughts, not sure how to act.

He always believed he was living on borrowed time with Yuuna, and that afterwards, he would be alone for the first time since waking to this world. That daemons were not really his to take, when he stole one with his very first thought.

The realisation that he might have been wrong… is too much.

The tiger daemon looks at him, vibrant eyes staring right through him, and nods.

“Lead the way,” he says, strong and beautiful and living, everything Zenyatta feels he himself is not.

Together, without touching one another, they hoist Genji’s unresponsive body from the snow, wet but alive and breathing and not icy cold, and they start the journey back towards Zenyatta’s safe spot.

His energy depleted because of transcending, Zenyatta has to walk, and his legs hurt enough that he fears he will drop at any moment –but Genji’s warm, heavy weight grounds him, and Zenyatta hisses and continues to walk through the pain, step after step, grinding his servos and pushing himself further.

His life is going to change again, very soon, and he’s not ready… but he welcomes the change.

Yuuna finds them like this.

She falters, a whine leaving her throat when she catches sight of Genji, of the daemon helping Zenyatta carry Genji’s body, and the sound breaks Zenyatta’s core.

“Genji–” it’s a broken, breathless gasp, and Zenyatta lifts his head to stare at her, and smiles through his forehead array.

“It seems the Iris finally led us to him, Yuuna.”

All three of them, they finally reach the safe spot, tucking Genji inside it, his head resting on the emergency kit pack, covered with one of the blankets in the fort. Yuuna refuses to leave his side, draped over his chest, with eyes for no one but Genji’s unconscious face, and the nameless daemon curls by his head, purring quietly.

Zenyatta watches them for a long time, relief and fatigue swirling within him, optics gazing at Genji’s face now uncovered, staring at his pale skin, his closed eyelids, his slack lips.

This is Genji –the person he stole Yuuna from.

He watches them, exhausted, until the throbbing in his legs finally fades, then watches as Yuuna pushes even closer to Genji, the adoration in her eyes bringing forth an ache within him that he should have expected… yet he did not.

He does not know when he decides to stand up –in a second he’s up and stumbling out of the safe spot and back outside, not venturing far, simply slumping against the closest tree for support, shivering.

Around him, the storm is calming down. Snow still falls, but rather than aggressively pushing into him, it now falls gently, softly, the wind calmer, the sounds of nature less violent.

His legs giving out under him, Zenyatta slumps down on the snow and curls up near the entrance of the safe spot, putting his face between his legs and counting slowly with his mind over and over. He does not breathe, but it helps him just as much as counting breathing would for a human.

Zenyatta does not move, not even when he feels the presence of the daemon shuffle by his side, close enough that if he were to reach out, he would touch him.

He does not dare.

“Forgive me,” he murmurs, his voice even. “I felt constricted, in there. I need just a second.”

For a moment, it seems like the daemon won’t speak, allowing Zenyatta a modicum of privacy. His illusion shatters with the daemon’s next words, slow and gentle. “You do not need to hide from me. I _know_.”

And his words are so final they feel almost damning.

“Do you?” he finds himself asking –not to be ornery, but simply because the idea fills him with dread.

No one, not even Yuuna, who was there since the start, knows him. Not even Mondatta does –not for lack of trying either, the both of them.

He never expected a daemon to make him feel like… like this.

Raw, and open.

“When you touched that light the first time,” the daemon says, quietly, “I felt it.”

Zenyatta turns his head, just a little, to look at him. Despite himself, he is curious. “Every time, since then?”

“Every time,” he confirms. “And that darkness. I felt that, too.”

Zenyatta flinches at the reminder.

“It only ever happened after…” the daemon hesitates, stiffens, and Zenyatta understands all too easily. “It was you, was it? You saved him.”

“I saved Yuuna,” he murmurs. “She’s his daemon.”

“You saved them both.” The daemon purrs, a rumbling sound that seems to penetrate through Zenyatta’s cold chassis. Satisfied. Content. “ _We_ did.”

“… yes,” he murmurs. “We did.”

“I am Sapanā,” the daemon finally says. “Genji says the first time he saw me, I was a butterfly.”

Zenyatta exhales softly. “I… I often dream I am a butterfly,” he admits, tilting his head upwards to look at the white sky. Like this, it feels comfortably quiet, even if it’s cold. Private. Secluded. If he doesn’t think about Genji and Yuuna inside, if he doesn’t think about Sapanā at his side, he can talk. He can be honest. “Small, yet free. Nothing grounds me, and I fly, allowing the wind to carry me.”

Weak, he doesn’t say, yet the word seems to stand between them, unspoken but heard by them both.

“At first, I felt like that,” Sapanā says back, and Zenyatta knows, even without looking, that he’s also looking away from him, and into the white mountainside. “I was weak. Genji hated me.” They both pretend to ignore the way Zenyatta flinches, minutely, at that. “I hated him a lot, too. I was new, I knew nothing, and he still hated me like it was my fault. But he protected me. And I understood a lot of things, after that. I wanted to become stronger, so I could protect him. And when… and when…” Sapanā falters, swallows, and continues “and when he almost died… I never wanted him to feel like that, ever again.”

It should be bittersweet, for Zenyatta to hear his own daemon speak about someone else like this –but it isn’t.

He’s spent all his life feeling indebted with the man whose daemon he stole. All he wants to do is learn more about the him he is now.

“Yuuna protected me a lot, after I first awoke,” he answers. He will offer back as much as he’s been given. “Everything was new, and confusing. I had every information I could get at the tip of my finger, yet I felt like I didn’t belong. Yuuna… she hated me too, for stealing her from Genji.” Sapanā turns his head, then, fixing him with a penetrant stare. Zenyatta does not look at him. “At times, I feel like she still resents me –for not coming sooner. For letting Genji suffer so much. We… we thought he was alone. We did not know you existed.”

Sapanā makes a soft, understanding noise, and Zenyatta chuckles, weakly.

“I wanted to become someone,” he says, after a moment. “She would go back to him, once we met. I would be left alone. I wanted to… I wanted to become someone too. So it would hurt less.”

“Genji thought you were a little kid. He hoped that if we ever met, he could have become your friend,” Sapanā tells him, and laughs. “I feel this changes things… just a little bit.”

Zenyatta hesitates, exhaling quietly. The snow falls slower, less heavily. The storm is passing.

“Who is he, Sapanā?”

“He’s broken,” is the honest, quiet reply. “It was hard.”

There’s so much more Zenyatta knows he’s not telling him –he can sense it from Sapanā’s swirling emotions, as tightly held together as his own, but easily read for him who knows where to look. He wonders if he appears just as easy to read to the daemon, simply because they are one.

It is simple, to want to insert himself in Genji’s life because this way he can keep being around Yuuna. It should be his first thought, the motivation that reveals that he is selfish.

Yet, when he speaks up, it is not out of selfish desire to learn about the man whose daemon he’s had by his side for around a decade, but because he genuinely wants to.

He would do the same for anyone who is in need, regardless of who they are.

“Perhaps I can help, then,” he murmurs. “If he allows me.”

Sapanā stands, stretching. Zenyatta expects him to move back inside, to rejoin Genji now that he’s secured Zenyatta’s help.

Instead he moves closer, and with deliberate slow movements settles his weight over Zenyatta’s body, pinning him down into the ground.

He’s heavy, and wet, but incredibly warm.

Touching him does not feel wrong, or strange. It feels like coming home.

Zenyatta’s fingers bury themselves into his fur to hide how much they’re shaking, and then he hides his faceplate into his back as well.

“You won’t be alone,” Sapanā tells him.

And maybe, just maybe, Zenyatta can start to believe it, now.


	6. 06

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you peeps who liked this fic, commented, and kudoe'd it :D i appreciate all of you big time!

**Chapter 06**

Genji comes to on a cot in an unfamiliar room.

He’s warm, and before he fully understands where he is, he stretches in bed, comfortable and lazy, then freezes.

Something is pressed right at his side on the small mattress and it’s… it’s familiar, like a very old, almost forgotten memory is poking at him.

For a moment, standing between wake and sleep, Genji lets himself dream of Yuuna. She always slept by his side, a heavy weight on his bed night after night, before he nudged her gently with a leg to get her to wake up, disgruntled and annoyed before moving to his face in retaliation, filling his mouth with fur.

Sapanā does never sleep there, almost like he knows. He probably does, Genji thinks, because Genji told Sapanā everything about Yuuna, about their past. He’s got nothing to hide, and this way, he keeps her memory alive. And well… Sapanā is now far too big to sleep on the bed with him.

Genji sighs, and opens his eyes, and suddenly he remembers.

He was lost in the snow – Sapanā left, their bond sore, and Genji had been left alone, only…

Only Sapanā came back, and with him… someone else.

Genji doesn’t remember much –but he remembers light, though he thinks that was mostly his delirious mind, and metal. It’s possible Sapanā called for someone to come, maybe one of the Shambali monks… though it is incredibly fortuitous they were able to find anyone in the snow.

Sapanā came back –he hadn’t left him alone.

Genji exhales slowly, his racing heart calming down.

With warmth around him, a blanket over him, tucked into a cot that probably belongs to the monks of the monastery, Genji realises, in a quiet moment with himself, that he was just about to give up.

The thought scares him, and it’s more awareness than he’s had in a long, long while.

He’s never had the intention to die –not by his own hand– but there’s something to be said about seeking situations that can become dangerous, and Genji has done that more than once, while still in Blackwatch, more often while with Overwatch, and then afterwards, on his own, when he’s realised he has no money to his name, and no chance to give his cyborg parts the care and maintenance they need. Nor how to do that.

His body is Overwatch’s weapon, its precious deathly jewel, a miracle of medicine and robotic-engineering, not quite one of a kind, but enough to make spare parts and knowledgeable engineers rare.

Enough that… Genji did not bother to seek one out for every little hiccup.

Here, alone with his thoughts after an almost-death situation, Genji faces what he has become –not in terms of machine versus human, or weapon versus soul… but simply that once given the choice to become something again after being a weapon for so long, he had no idea what to do with himself. He let himself go, even with his soulmate daemon at his side, and despite the anger, the rage, his desire to find a culprit to blame for it all… the only one he lashed out at was his own self.

Of course, why would he lash out at Sapanā, when he’s the one who was by his side all along? When the one time he leaves, hurting them both, it’s to bring someone back to help Genji?

Genji stretched himself thin for so long, believing he could not be helped, but Sapanā never gave up on him.

Perhaps… perhaps he needs help.

He doesn’t think he could have done it, without Sapanā, either. If it had been him and Yuuna, he thinks, how similar they had been while they were still together, it’s probable they would have fallen into a pit of despair that Genji could not get them out of.

Maybe the Shambali are all about patience, and meditation and love, and maybe they’ll not be right for Genji, or not know how to help.

But it’s a start. Maybe he can try to care again.

There has to be more to this stupid life he’s got left than… this.

He shuffles and sits on the bed, looking for the familiar shape of Sapanā laying on the floor, only to find nothing there. Sapanā is not there.

A different daemon is, curled up by Genji’s side like Yuuna did.

A bobcat, taking enough space on the bed that Genji thinks, distantly, that the daemon is hogging all of it.

Just like Yuuna did.

Like…

“Yuuna…?”

The daemon stirs, big eyes opening instantly to stare at him, and Genji–

The warmth that floods into him like a heartstring being picked is familiar in such a way he finds himself crying, tears rolling down his cheeks.

“Genji,” Yuuna says, and the desperation, the longing he feels doubles at her tone.

He missed her so much.

She is gentle, calmer –she doesn’t bounce on him, mindful of his body still recovering, but she pushes him back down on the cot and covers his chest with her body, purring softly.

Shocked, overjoyed, unable to understand, Genji lets her, wraps his arms slowly around her, wincing when his metal meet the soft fur of her body, afraid she will–

“It’s all you,” she tells him, almost sternly, no-nonsense tone he remembers, more serious than before. “Sapanā told us.”

Us.

Her, and–

“You’ve been here? All this time?” he chokes on that, unable to believe they could have been at the Shambali monastery all along.

“Not all the time, no.” Yuuna nibbles his chin, her whiskers tickling Genji’s face. “Zen and I have been travelling to find you.”

“Zen?”

“Your soulmate. Sapanā is with him, now.”

Genji chuckles, weakly. “How old is he, now? Eighteen?”

“In a way,” Yuuna nods, smugly, like she knows something he doesn’t, then she nuzzles closer. When she speaks again, it feels like she’s revealing a horrid secret. “All this time, we thought you were alone.”

“I wasn’t?” Genji blinks, slowly. “I had Sapanā. Why did you think…”

“The subject of daemons and souls is a complex matter, for Omnics,” a new voice pipes up from the door, and Genji, startled, tries to shuffle out of Yuuna’s body to get up, the hidden compartment in his arm sliding open to reveal a set of sharp shuriken.

Yuuna refuses to move, stubbornly keeping him pinned under her, and Genji looks to the door, only to find a tall, imposing omnic in pristine white clothes, a white dove perched on his shoulder.

He blinks again, slower, and tries to calm down his heart _again_.

“Forgive me for startling you, Genji. I am Tekhartha Mondatta, and you are at the Shambali monastery under my care.”

He nods, weakly. “So… were you the one who found me?”

“I was not,” Mondatta denies, shaking his head, and the dove on his shoulder makes a soft, cooing noise. “That would have been Zenyatta.”

Genji might be tired, and still reeling in the fact that his daemon is with him, but he’s not stupid. He connects the dots between ‘Zen’ and Zenyatta, and feels a sudden spike of uneasiness.

“He found me…?” he’s almost horrified by how bad the news make him feel.

“He saved you, and when the storm ended, he brought you back to the monastery. You have been sleeping for a few days, but your prosthetics did not have lasting damage with the cold, just some that was accumulated overtime. You have been unable to find anyone to give you a check-up, I get?”

Genji swallows thickly. “No. I am… a difficult patient, so to speak.”

“Thankfully, the mechanics and the engineers that reside within this monastery are used to patients old enough to be out of production,” Mondatta says, and his voice sounds amused. “Newer models are not a problem for them, not when they want a good challenge. Zenyatta’s worry was a good motivator.”

“I… thank you.” The words hurt, but not because of pride.

“There is no need for that,” Mondatta tells him, his voice so kind Genji feels almost overwhelmed. “We are here to offer help to all those who ask. And some who do not, but need it nonetheless. Until you are better, you are free to remain here.”

Genji wants to say something to that, the words building behind his closed lips, but before he can say them, blurt them out to be done with them, another figure peeks from behind Mondatta’s shoulder. “Brother. Is he awake?”

“Yes, my light.” Mondatta moves to the side, and another omnic enters the room.

Genji feels the stare of this new omnic on him, and meets it steadily, unwilling to appear weak, even in such a situation.

Genji blinks, taking in the omnic, the tray he’s holding, the exposed shoulders and circuits, frame lithe. His faceplate is all soft curves and gently slanted holes for his optical receptors, that give him a kind, loopy look. His forehead array is teal, just like Mondatta’s, but in a square rather than a diamond shape, and he’s dressed in pink hues, rather than white and cream, his style less elaborate than Mondatta’s elegant clothes.

In a way, the pink suits the omnic, and his looks aren’t unpleasant to the eye either. In fact, with that rich voice and the delicate appearance, visible circuits and pistons, he looks… rather appealing, and Genji swallows thickly at that stray thought, embarrassed at himself. He must be more tired than he thought.

“Welcome to the Shambali monastery, Genji,” the omnic says, warm and welcoming, and Genji feels a little flustered under the open greeting. “I thought you must be hungry, so I passed by the kitchens to have a light broth prepared for you.”

Genji is… famished, really, and even that feeling is novel.

He’s cared little about food, before, but Yuuna’s presence jolted something inside Genji, and so does the fact that he’s still alive, once again despite everything, and perhaps Genji can take that as a sign.

“I will let you two to it, then,” Mondatta nods, and Genji bows his head at him in thanks once again, aware that someone like Mondatta, the leader of the Shambali, must have many things to care for, and a random visitor is not one of those. Besides, Genji is far more interested in the meal that the other omnic still holds for him.

Yuuna scrambles to move off, saying nothing but knowing Genji needs food, and the omnic places the tray down on his knees. Genji notices, with a little shiver, that the omnic doesn’t have a daemon by his side, and even with Mondatta’s earlier words on the subject he can’t help but feel jarred by that, since the omnic spoke to him just moments earlier.

When he was little, he heard a lot about how omnics supposedly ‘steal’ daemons from humans, and always scoffed at that, though the subject was never that interesting for him, but then…

Then, he met Echo, during his Overwatch days. She had a tiny little daemon of her own, a small blue parrot, and Genji never, for a single moment, despite how angry he felt all the time, thought that the daemon wasn’t hers.

He believes omnics have souls…

So when Genji freezes at the lack of a daemon near this omnic, he feels bad.

And he’s a hypocrite too, because… didn’t he think himself a monster, and a heartless machine, despite having a daemon? If this omnic does not have one, it doesn’t mean that he is a monster, or someone to be wary of.

Because of that, when the omnic attempts small talk while Genji eats, instead of grunting or keeping silent and allowing the omnic to talk on his own, Genji tries to talk back, albeit hesitantly. He’s still thankful that the omnic ignores the way his hands shake as he holds the bowl and the spoon, allowing Genji to eat at his own pace without offering help that would make Genji feel shamed for his own weakness.

It’s almost easy to let the omnic direct the conversation without having to do much except say a word here and there, and Genji’s never considered how he’d missed actual contact with others until now.

As the omnic talks about the monastery, Genji keeps one hand on Yuuna’s back, like a lifeline. He answers the questions of the omnic, surprised when there are none about Yuuna, since he’s sure this omnic must have seen her around, if his soulmate had her until now.

That… is a subject Genji can’t make himself focus on, not even to ask where ‘Zenyatta’ is.

Zenyatta is supposed to be his soulmate, and had Yuuna for the past decade, and ended up saving Genji himself from death… and probably expected someone better, as his soulmate.

Someone with a normal, human body –not a broken, battered cyborg, more machine than human.

He might not wish to die, he might want help to try and cope with everything, since even with Sapanā by his side, he still felt lost and cornered and perpetually angered, but he does not think he wishes to put so much pressure over a young teenager, not even as a friendship.

It’d be unfair, to ruin his life, but at the same time… he does not want Sapanā out of his life, even if that means accepting compromises.

“What do you wish to do, once you heal?” the omnic asks him finally, after a lull in their conversation, and Genji realises, startled, that they have been talking for at least an hour, because he’s finished his meal and is almost drowsy now, full and at ease.

It’s surprising, but Genji thinks it’s a comfortable moment, with Yuuna with him and the knowledge that he doesn’t have to run, at least not for now. And this omnic is cute, and kind, and Genji honestly doesn’t mind at all the missing daemon now. If anything, he thinks this omnic’s soul is far more real than his own.

“I…” Genji looks down, hands clenched around the blanket.

Yuuna looks at him, nudges his shoulder.

“I was seeking out the Shambali,” he says.

The omnic is silent for a few seconds, forehead array flickering in thought, then he exhales an artificial breath. “I know it is… preposterous of me to ask, when we do not really know one another, and I am but a stranger to you,” he sends a glance at Yuuna, and Genji prepares himself for the question incoming, only to be surprised when instead of inquiring about her, the omnic says, instead, “but… what is it that troubles you so, Genji? I can see there is disquiet in your soul. If you need to talk… if you need to ask anything… you can. No one here will judge you. You will not be rejected. Even if it is not me, there are others. Mondatta is also good at listening, and he’s never too busy for anyone who needs it.”

He seems… hesitant, and the tense set of his shoulders is almost familiar to Genji, in a way he can’t truly place into words, but he’s… it’s almost a relief, to have an opening.

“Sapanā… he’s my… my soulmate daemon… I think he hoped the Shambali… you… could help me. I have… I can’t–” _‘I am always furious, angry, seeking danger, I can’t look at myself and feel at ease with the way I look and feel’_ “I think he is right. I need… I need _help_.”

He can’t truly explain about his brother, about his clan, about Overwatch and Blackwatch and the failures and being a weapon –it’s bad enough Sapanā knows all of it– not yet, but just admitting that he needs help took all he had, and then more, and he’s left washed out and raw with just that small truth out in the open.

“There are wounds in your soul that refuse to close,” the omnic murmurs, softly, but there’s no pity in his tone, just understanding as Genji’s eyes snap up to him. “I can sense them. They are open and bleeding. Your daemon’s presence soothes the pain for now, but it isn’t enough.”

Genji’s hands shake.

He’s said enough, he cannot make himself ask, but… but…

“No one is turned away, when they seek help, Genji,” the omnic tells him, and the tension in Genji’s shoulders fades. “You are welcome to stay. We will help you.”

“Who…”

“I will not presume you will wish to have my aid, Genji,” the omnic hastens to tell him, as if he’s meant to be reassuring, and Genji feels his heart stutter, just a bit, in disappointment. “I am sure Mondatta will direct you towards someone better suited.”

“But–” the word comes out of Genji’s lips without him meaning to, and he feels his cheeks burn when the omnic points his optical receptors at him, waiting.

Genji doesn’t know why he’s fixated on this one particular omnic –but the idea of being helped by another omnic who Genji doesn’t know is not inviting at all, and he feels… comfortable, around him. He’s not demanding, does not force him to talk, simply accepting his silences and moving on. He does not push for information, nor presume, but he prodded him enough for an answer when Genji wanted to give it. This omnic treated him with respect, keeping them at the same level, and for Genji that’s a lot.

He thinks… he thinks he would not mind, if he could have this omnic help him.

The omnic is still silent, waiting, and Genji feels Yuuna nose him in the hand, without talking, supporting him.

They haven’t seen one another longer than they have been together, and still Genji feels a rush of strength just by her being here with him again.

It is his decision, in the end.

“I… I do not mind if it is…” he swallows. “Unless you are not–” and then he backtracks, realising what he’s asking of this omnic who doesn’t even _know_ him. For help that deals with everything that Genji is, all his problems, his hatred and anger, and shame hits him so strongly he’s left breathless. “I’m–”

“If you wish for me to help you, Genji, I will gladly do so.” The omnic interrupts him, and gives him a forehead array smile, the teal lights humming.

Genji looks down, almost overwhelmed by his kindness.

So much has happened in the span of a few hours, and he knows once the adrenaline rush is over, once he rests and thinks about it all, he will regret it –being this open with someone, asking for help…

But for now, he will take it.

He digs into Yuuna’s fur, unfamiliar yet familiar, but something is missing and he knows what it is.

“Where… where is Sapanā?”

He doesn’t want to take him away from his other half, and knows it’s unfair when he has Yuuna with him already, but he wants to see him regardless.

“He is waiting outside,” the omnic says, a tinge of amusement in his tone. “He did not want to overwhelm you.”

Genji chokes. “No, he’d never–”

“It’s alright, Genji,” Sapanā says, sliding into the room. It’s clear he was waiting for him right there all along. “I was never too far.”

“Thank you,” Genji tells him, and it’s not just for him being here now, but for everything. If it wasn’t for him leaving…

“Perhaps I should leave you rest, now.” The omnic stands, and both Yuuna and Sapanā, startled, look at him. “Genji needs rest. He’s just woken up, but he’s been through an exhausting ordeal, and there are many things he might want to think on… and I have my duties, still.”

“I will not keep you, after all you’ve done for me,” Genji tells the omnic, then reaches out for Sapanā, and gently caresses his head, not thinking much about it.

He does not expect the omnic to flinch, a stutter coming from him as his fans kick in, loud enough even Genji can hear them, and stumble back until he hits the wall behind him.

Sapanā rumbles and leans into the touch, and the omnic makes a soft, embarrassed sound, covering his synth with one trembling hand.

Genji frowns –he does not think it is that improper to touch a daemon he’s had by his side for so long… unless the omnic finds him flaunting having two daemons by his side where he has none, and flinches. “I’m sorry–”

“It… I feel we might need a rule,” the omnic says, obviously flustered, synth glitching, “to deal with… touching.” He shivers until Genji removes his hand, even if Sapanā grunts in disappointment. The omnic’s shoulders slump in relief. “I did not expect to feel like that.”

Chastised, Genji looks down. “Forgive me. I did not expect it would cause that reaction.”

“It… it is quite alright.” For someone who does not need to breathe, the omnic sounds breathless, and the sound of his voice does things to Genji’s insides that are far more surprising than the omnic’s reaction to him touching Sapanā.

It is only as he watches the omnic hurry out of the room that Genji realises with a jolt, that he still doesn’t know his name.

He’s asked the omnic for help, basically pledging himself to him as a student, and he still… “wait!”

The omnic stills, one hand on the door. “Yes?”

“I… I don’t know your name,” he says, openly embarrassed.

He does not understand the way the omnic freezes at that, turning to look at him in what could be called disbelief, even without a face to show it clearly.

He also does not understand when Yuuna starts to laugh so hard she rolls off the cot, and he’s even more baffled when Sapanā laughs as well, a little more dignified in his huffs, but still noticeable.

“What…?”

“I… I did not realise,” the omnic says, and he looks even more flustered now.

When he speaks next, Genji finally understands.

“My name is Tekhartha Zenyatta,” the omnic says.

Oh, Genji thinks.

_Oh_.

***

“I do not like this.”

“You do not like a lot of things, my student.”

“Well, it’s justified!” Genji knows he’s being annoying, but he can’t help it.

The sun is high in the sky, warming the skin of his face where his visor doesn’t cover, and his prosthetic hands tickle with residual energy as he digs them deep into the soil under his body.

He would very well daze off like this, if it wasn’t for the fact that Zenyatta has just mopped the metaphorical floors with him, repeatedly.

“You beat me again,” he says, just to make sure Zenyatta understands the depths of his exasperation, and the fact that he’s teasing. Just a little.

“Is the fact that I beat you enough to make you so despondent?”

“Again! I can’t believe you won _again_!”

“Everyone must face disappointment, Genji,” Zenyatta chides, but there is a smile in his tone as well. “It is not my fault you face disappointment at least once a week. Twice, when there is no cake after dinner.”

Genji wants to drag this on, pout and huff and make a giant show of annoyance, but his lips twitch into a smile and he can’t really make himself continue this.

Every time Zenyatta defeats him, Genji grows a little bit more alright with everything.

At first, he felt disappointed, disgusted with himself, trying to unlearn and move past his previous truths –that he can’t be a good weapon, if he’s blunted by defeat– but Zenyatta works with him, coaxes him so gently Genji barely feels himself change until he has.

And now…

Now, Genji’s complaints are for show. Loud, disbelieving, poking fun at Zenyatta rather than close himself off with his disgust and depression.

Every time he jokes like this, another fragment of his broken past falls off of him, and he feels cleansed.

He’s not repaired yet, but he doesn’t feel as broken anymore. He feels… content.

Plus… if he can keep Zenyatta smiling at him like he’s doing now, looking down at him with an amused blink of his forehead array, Genji thinks it’s worth it.

It was always worth it, for himself first and foremost, but Genji still has problems with admitting that about himself, and Zenyatta said it’s alright to deflect, for now. To say that Sapanā was worth it, that Yuuna was worth it, that Zenyatta is worth it.

One day, he will look back and say it was worth it for himself too.

He can’t wait until then.

For now, Genji will take it easy, one defeat at a time.

“It would be less of a disappointment if I could at least get you on the ground with me at least _once_ ,” he says, and a thrills goes down his back when Zenyatta scoffs, but his synth makes a small sound before that.

“Should I go easy on you, Genji, to spare your delicate pride, next time?”

The laughter bubbles up and he lets it, laughs until he’s breathless, until Yuuna drops on top of him in a huff to make him stop, and then Sapanā joins in and drops on _his face_ , choking him, and it takes him ten minutes after that to spit all the fur out of his mouth and nose, sticking everywhere from his visor. Zenyatta merely watches him, for all intents and purposes the careful, crafted mask of a perfect teacher, but Genji can see the way his shoulders shook in restrained laugh, and smiles brightly at him.

“My good looks and my perfect manners will always win, anyway, even in defeat.”

“Oh, perfect manners, you say?” Zenyatta hums, tapping one finger against his mouthpiece and pretending to think. “Why, I must have missed the memo. Allow me to converse with my peers, and I will let you know how it goes.”

“Master!”

Zenyatta shakes his head. “No, no, Genji, now. I must be fair.” He turns towards Yuuna and Sapanā, and makes a good show of calling them closer. “Now, what is this about perfect manners, my friends? Do you by chance know about it?”

Yuuna rolls around laughing, so hard she is utterly useless in this charade, but Sapanā, more dignified and baring his teeth, is not above playing along. “Oh well, Zen, I wouldn’t know… if he found these perfect manners around, they must be invisible, since I have not seen them at all.”

“That is exactly what I thought.” Zenyatta nods sagely, but his forehead array is burning brightly in a smile, and Genji looks up at him and his heart makes a little, traitorous skip in his chest. “Then again, he is right about his good looks.”

Zenyatta stands, casually, leaving behind Genji spluttering and fumbling with himself, and walks away, and Genji’s besotted eyes follow him as he returns back inside the monastery.

Sapanā remains with him and Yuuna, lazy and unwilling to leave that warm spot of sun, and Genji drags himself over across the grounds to bury his face into his belly, sighing.

“Zenyatta will be my death,” he murmurs into the fur, dramatically.

“Now, that’s dramatic,” Yuuna says, finally recovered from her bout of laughing.

“After all,” Sapanā says, loudly, “he’s not the one who keeps touching Yuuna all the time. I think you deserve the payback.”

Genji freezes, aware he’s still half-buried into Sapanā’s fur, then smiles. “Alright,” he admits. “That is true.”

Yuuna and Sapanā exchange a knowing look, but say nothing.

Since Genji and Sapanā’s arrival to the monastery, things have truly changed.

With slow, sure steps, Genji is learning, leaving behind the anger that before had plagued him for so long, until all his thoughts and actions were tainted by it. It is not an easy path, but the more he walks on it, with Zenyatta’s help, the more he learns about himself, and, consequently, about Zenyatta.

There are a lot of things about Zenyatta that Genji wants to learn, with the kind of drive that he understands is not simply out of friendship, or because of a sense of obligation.

Zenyatta is… something else.

Genji will never tire of feeling elated to have met him, and even more so, to have him as his soulmate.

He wants to learn how to make Zenyatta smile more, for example –or how to make him flustered… though that part is easy. The harder part is the retaliation. Genji’s never felt as hot as he does when he has Zenyatta’s full attention.

He’s never felt less self-conscious than when Zenyatta looks at him, so casually, and compliments him on things Genji used to hate, because there is no deceit in Zenyatta’s tone, nothing except true, honest wonder.

It’s still overwhelming enough that Genji hesitates to truly take that last step, but he feels… he feels it’s close enough that it leaves the tips of his fingers tingling at the prospect, at the growing, building anticipation bubbling under his skin.

Knowing that when he is ready, Zenyatta will not say no.

Knowing that what they are building together will not end with his question, regardless.

“Sappy,” Sapanā tells him. He cannot read in Genji’s thoughts, but since finding Zenyatta, he’s grown even more attentive, perceptive, just like Zenyatta is, reading further into his emotions than before… and thus, he knows perfectly when Genji’s lost in thoughts about Zenyatta.

Or perhaps it’s his besotted face, as Yuuna calls it, the one he has when he thinks about Zenyatta.

Either, both. Genji doesn’t care about hiding it.

“You like me like that,” he tells, laying down on the grass once again.

It won’t stay warm like this forever –they’re approaching fall again, and soon it will be cold, and then snow will come again… and then spring.

Maybe they should travel, before winter comes –he, Zenyatta, Sapanā and Yuuna. Mondatta’s always so busy with his sermons and meetings, planning one after the other all across Europe, and then Asia, and then Europe again, and Zenyatta seems like he’s getting antsy about being coped up in the monastery.

He has no real input to offer, since he likes it here, where he can feel safe… but Genji won’t begrudge Zenyatta his desire to see places, and once Genji felt the same way. He’s sure that he can feel that way again, as long as Zenyatta remains by his side.

Yes, he thinks, smiling as he looks up at the sun.

Travelling sounds good.

Perhaps if he learns more during their travels, he can finally win a spar against Zenyatta.

“Keep wishing, dear,” Yuuna says, startling him, and honestly.

Sapanā he can understand, but his own daemon? Betrayal.

With the laughter of both daemons following him, Genji stands up and jogs back towards the monastery, his thoughts on the chores they’ll have to do before he can talk to Zenyatta about travelling.

He foresees a lot of happy, warm mornings waking up on the road with Zenyatta by his side, and the thought makes him smile, just a bit more.

Genji, once of the Shimada clan, once of Blackwatch, once of Overwatch, now simply Genji, is finally happy, and free.

**Author's Note:**

> there's a silly easter egg in this fic that is entirely unrelated to HDM and has absolutely no bearing on the fic itself as a whole. (it's a cameo of sorts? somewhat)


End file.
